LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Ford is the latest U.S. automaker to hire hundreds of workers as the economy picks up and auto sales improve.
At an announcement in front of workers in its Louisville Assembly Plant, Mark Fields, Ford’s president of the Americas, said the factory plans to hire 1,800 more employees — or nearly 5 percent of Ford’s current U.S. workforce — to build a new version of the Ford Escape, a small sport utility vehicle.
The Escape is the second-best- selling small SUV in the U.S., behind the Honda CR-V.
Ford will invest $600 million in a year-long renovation of the plant, and Fields said the upgrades will help Ford shift to smaller cars and boost its competitiveness. The new Escape will be built on the Ford Focus car platform instead of a truck one to boost fuel economy.
When the Louisville plant reopens in late 2011, it will be one of the most advanced in the company, able to switch quickly between car models in response to consumer demand.
Fields said such flexibility is necessary as the market grows more competitive. Other carmakers such as Toyota and Hyundai have newer, more nimble U.S. plants.
The Louisville plant will be running on two shifts with 2,900 workers when it reopens. Some of the 1,800 added workers will be new hires, but many will come from Ford plants where they have been laid off, Ford said.
Under a 2007 contract, new hires will make around $14 an hour, or half the wages of veteran workers at the plant, which will mean significant savings for the company.
“I think what it has done is lifted the morale of the plant,” said Ralph Hearn, a plant production-standards representative.
Ford, which gets $240 million in tax incentives for the project, has around 40,000 U.S. hourly production workers.
