Industry fallout

The newest The Harris Poll shows that auto makers lost 31 points in a survey that asked 1,010 U.S. adults about the reputation of the 20 leading industries.

“Unsurprisingly, the industries whose reputations have been most badly hurt in the last 12 months are car manufacturers (down 31 points), banks (down 24 points), and investment and brokerage firms (down 27 points),” according to a statement from Harris Interactive.

Also declining are health insurance companies (down 10 points) and pharmaceutical companies (down six points). However, life insurance companies improved (up 12 points).

On the positive side, 92% of Americans say supermarkets are doing good jobs, 78% for hospitals, 76% for online search engines and 72% for packaged food, computer hardware and software companies.

On the negative side, 63% of Americans say tobacco companies are bad, 60% don’t like oil companies, and 54% don’t care for managed care companies.

OTHER FINDINGS
• Airlines show a bigger improvement this year than any other industry.

• Since the first poll in 1997, airlines are up 16 points, from 18 to 34, life insurance is up 12 points, from 26 to 38, and tobacco companies are up 11 points, from minus 43 to minus 32.

• Since the first poll in 1997, the car manufacturers’ score has dropped 31 points from 37 to 6, banks are down 24 points from 46 to 22, and nvestment and brokerage firms are down 27 points from 24 to minus 3.