Auto industry jobs increased during President Joe Biden's administration, but not by 1 million as he promised.

The most basic definition of automotive industry jobs comes from four categories tallied by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. There was job growth for each category.

• Motor vehicles and parts manufacturing grew from almost 904,000 jobs when Biden was inaugurated to 1,055,400 in the most recent month available, October 2024.

• Wholesale motor vehicles and parts jobs grew from 340,500 to 384,000 over the same period.

• Retail motor vehicles and parts jobs grew from just over 1.9 million to almost 2.1 million.

• Automotive repair and maintenance jobs grew from just over 914,900 to almost 1.04 million.

Together, these four categories produced an increase of about 456,000 jobs on Biden's watch, or an increase of about 11%. 

This calculation doesn't include some jobs that would fall outside of these four categories, such as electric vehicle charging stations, which Biden cited in making the promise. But it does not appear that including these additional jobs would get Biden to 1 million.

As president, Biden signed legislation, including a bipartisan infrastructure bill and the CHIPS and Science Act, designed to boost networks underlying the expansion of electric vehicles and advanced electric batteries. 

However, the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn't break out these job types into distinct categories. The Blue Green Alliance, a group of labor unions and environmental organizations that backs pro-environment policies including electric vehicles, estimates that 188,000 new EV-related jobs have been created from projects already announced. But this tally includes jobs created before Biden became president and may overlap with jobs counted in the automotive sector totals above.

There's been an increase of about half a million auto industry jobs under Biden's presidency, consistent with his promise to boost jobs in this sector. Because Biden got nearly half way to his 1 million jobs pledge, we rate this promise Compromise.