What would the United States look like if the auto industry went away? That’s been on the minds of everyone when discussing the auto bail-out.

Now, it’s unclear exactly what would happen in event of a bankruptcy, but we shouldn’t expect that all of the auto jobs would go away. But what’s the limits of downside risk?

David McCurdy, president of an auto trade association, says that there are 13 million auto-related jobs out there. The BLS, the official government tracker of this kind of thing, says that there are only 842,600 auto sector jobs out there (including parts) so McCurdy is likely using a multiplier.

But the BLS also gives us trends that McCurdy does not, and that’s important. Employment in the auto industry has been declining since 2000. It has already lost 487,200 jobs in the automotive sector since 2000. So given that more than a third of jobs were lost and using McCurdy’s multiplier factor of 14.4 (he says it’s only five, but the math says 14.4); has the country lost 7 million jobs since 2000? No. The economy added 5 million jobs, (and that’s including recent events!).

We live in a very dynamic economy. Every year, about 10-15 percent of jobs are both created and destroyed–typically more created than destroyed. So far, the country has already been able to afford giant decreases in auto jobs. It’s happened without propelling recession. If we wanted to prevent harm from a loss of the industry, we should’ve acted back in 2000, not 2008.

Of course, the possibility of bankruptcy is happening at a time when the rest of the nation was growing, but that changes the focus, doesn’t it? The focus should be on how to improve the overall economy–not whether to subsidize some players in an industry.