Volkswagen Chattanooga: We Hire
The line at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant will run a little faster. It will produce 35 cars instead of 31 per hour. That also produces new jobs. In an emailed statement, VWoA announced today that 200 new permanent jobs will be created at its Tennessee plant.
The increased production is needed to keep up with the demand. Volkswagen’s new car sales were up 23 percent for 2011, and a whopping 31 percent in December. The market grew 10 percent for the year, and 9 percent for December. The Passat, which is built in Chattanooga, is a brisk seller. “Each car that we make is sold on the spot,” says Volkswagen spokesman Guenther Scherelis. He did not want to speculate on January sales, which will be announced tomorrow.
This should create smiles all-around. Ryan Rose, head of HR in Chattanooga, explains:
“These 200 new positions are all full-time Volkswagen jobs. We will use this opportunity to hire many of our current Aerotek contract employees. So, Aerotek will be recruiting to fill full-time contract production positions that will open up as a result. We will also be hiring additional supervisors and engineers – so there are a lot of opportunities.”
Aerotek provides contract employees to VW. The new full-time jobs will be integrated into Volkswagen’s current two-shift operation. Volkswagen gains experienced team-members, and new openings for contract workers are created. Who will be in-line for full-time jobs when the line will make a few more cars per hour down the road. ..
Currently, the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga employs more than 2,500 people, about 2,000 by Volkswagen, and an additional 500 by Aerotek. This number will now rise to 2,700.
It’s good that the UAW had hoisted the white flag and gave up on unionizing the South. The UAW already was not welcome in Chattanooga. With 200 new jobs created, the question would even more be:
“1,2,3,4 – what are we paying for?”
In other big news, Volkswagen now is doing something for it’s image when seen from above. Says Bloomberg:
“Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant will add a big, flat-mounted rooftop sign that can be seen from the air and is so large the plant’s chief executive said it will be visible online on Google Earth.”
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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That's great that they're adding more workers, it should make lots of people happy. I know there are a lot of people complaining on the TDI forums about the long wait times for their pre-ordered Passat TDIs. From what I read yesterday they were doing only TDI production for a while recently to get cars to people with deposits on them. If you look at your local VW dealer inventory there are lots of gas models sitting on lots, but very few TDIs (14 2.5 gas and 1 TDI SE at my local dealer). Hopefully this helps eliminate the long wait times and the gas and diesel powered cars prove to be reliable and VW doesn't abandon another US factory again. Although I think they learned their lesson with Westmoreland.
So how permanent are these 'permanent jobs'? Until the state tax holiday runs out and they relocate to some other southern state dangling new tax holidays in front of them?