Volkswagen To Add 800 Jobs at Chattanooga Factory
By Matthew Dolan
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Volkswagen AG said it will hire to fill 800 new jobs at a Chattanooga, Tenn., factory it opened last year, reflecting anticipated demand for a new car built there.
The hiring, which will help the German auto maker increase production of its Passat midsize sedan, comes in addition to 200 new jobs added at the Chattanooga plant earlier this year.
“Local production is essential to making Volkswagen of America profitable,” said Albrecht Denninghoff, an analyst at German investment bank Silvia Quandt & Cie.
The Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga currently employs more than 2,700 people, including 500 by Aerotek, a unit of Allegis Group Inc., and the company’s staffing supplier. The new hiring disclosed on Thursday will include jobs offered by both companies.
Volkswagen has shown recent strength in the U.S. market with brand sales rising 26% in 2011 to 324,400. It ended the year with a 2.5% U.S. market share, up from 2.2% a year earlier, according to Autodata Corp. Volkswagen has set a goal to sell 800,000 vehicles in the U.S. by 2018.
The Chattanooga plant started making the Passat last year and it went on sale in the fall, selling 22,835 in a couple months. It was more than the 12,497 it sold in all of 2010 when the Passat was made in Germany and cost $8,000 more.
VW has sold 14,507 Passats this year through February. New staffing will give VW the potential to build 170,000 cars at the plant by 2013, according to company officials.
“Quite plainly, we need more Passats to meet the market demand,” said Jonathan Browning, President and CEO of Volkswagen Group of America.
Helped by favorable foreign exchange rates and an ample supply of affordable labor, the U.S. is emerging as fertile ground for foreign auto makers who want to expand their production.
Volkswagen is mulling a second plant to produce Audi vehicles in the U.S. BMW is expanding its plant in South Carolina while Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz unit is considering adding a second U.S. plant.
Earlier this month, VW also said it will invest $40 million to build a warehouse for distributing parts for the Chattanooga-made Passat. The warehouse will employ 45 people by 2016.
My Interpretation.
This is exactly why I do not like how their are people who still will not buy cars made outside of America. They truly have no idea that their is no such thing as a foreign company. Every company is an international firm in todays world. This company that yes has german heritage produces many of their cars in America, while the "Big 3" American firms are outsourcing to Mexico and Canada... Now can you tell me who is the true America firm?
