Ford will add over 2,000 jobs at its Kansas City Assembly Plant to meet increasing demand for the Ford F-150 and for planned production of the new Transit commercial vehicle line. Of those new jobs, about 1,000 of them will be completely new hires.
The first new jobs at the plant will start in the third quarter of the year when 900 workers and a third crew will be added to build the Ford F-150. The second round of new jobs will start in the fourth quarter with the addition of 1,100 workers to get ready for planned production of the new Transit commercial vehicle line.
Sales of Ford F-Series vehicles have been strong throughout 2013 boasting a 19 percent increase year-to-date. April alone saw sales increases of 24 percent demonstrating the strength of the full-size truck segment. It’s currently growing three times faster than the industry average and is the fastest growing segment so far this year.
Ford is also investing $1.1 billion dollars in the Kansas City Assembly Plant itself to retool and expand production of the Ford F-150 and start production of the Transit. This investment allows for the addition of a 437,000-square-foot stamping facility and a 78,000-square-foot paint shop.
The stamping facility was completed back in 2012. The upcoming paint shop expansion will include installation of the new three-wet paint process. This new paint process is both more environmentally friendly and quicker than conventional methods, but won’t compromise the quality of the finished product.
These additional jobs at the Kansas City Assembly Plant bring Ford three-quarters of the way to its plan of creating 12,000 hourly jobs in the U.S. by 2015. They’ll also go a long way to helping the economy beyond the Ford plant. Currently there are 250 national suppliers and 10 local suppliers that will all benefit from the addition of the third crew. That number will only increase when Transit production begins next year.
Nicole Wakelin fell in love with cars as a teenager when she got to go for a ride in a Ferrari. It was red and it was fast and that was all that mattered. Game over. She considers things a bit more carefully now, but still has a weakness for fast, beautiful cars. Nicole also writes for NerdApproved and GeekMom.
