GM still looks to add hundreds in Spring Hill

General Motors is still looking for temporary workers to fill its proposed third shift at Spring Hill amid a tight labor market.

With the Middle Tennessee unemployment rate at the lowest level in decades, hundreds of people filled out work applications at an automotive industry job fair Saturday near GM’s 4,000-employee complex southwest of Nashville.

Even after the job fair, the automaker is still looking for candidates.

“We still have quite a few jobs to fill,’’ GM spokeswoman Courtney Moats said.

In April, plans were announced to add more than 700 temporary workers in September at a starting hourly wage of $15.78. Health benefits are set to begin 90 days after employment starts.

Temporary workers are usually let go before permanent workers during a long downturn in production. GM says temps are preferred to fill vacancies in the permanent workforce.

GM Spring Hill is adding a third shift to staff the facility after the first and second shifts are gone. The new shift is meant to boost output in response to rising sales for the pair of mid-size sport-utility vehicles made in the plant. They are the Cadillac XT5 and Chevrolet Acadia. A version of the Acadia is also assembled for export to Australia, where GM markets its vehicles under the Holden brand name.

GM is adding a third shift as suppliers also ramp up production. The job fair Saturday, conducted with the Tennessee Workforce Development Board, was intended to recruit candidates to fill 2,000 open positions at GM, Leadec, Magna, Precision Vehicle Logistics and Ryder, the Columbia Daily News reported.

Middle Tennessee’s booming automotive sector has helped spur an industrial labor shortage. In May, manufacturers in all sectors had about 80,000 jobs filled in metropolitan Nashville, compared to about 63,000 in 2010.

Statewide programs such as Tennessee Reconnect aim to steer adults into training sessions meant to enhance skills to the level needed in modern factories. The National Association of Manufacturers estimates 3.5 million manufacturing jobs will open over the next decade.

Anticipating future needs, GM next week will sponsor a free two-day skills camp for high school students. The advanced manufacturing program is intended to acquaint teenagers with the production environment. It is scheduled to begin July 25 in Spring Hill at the Northfield Workforce Development & Conference Center.

In Nashville, the unemployment rate slipped to 2.3 percent in May. This was the lowest rate for any May in any year in more than three decades.

Employers in the metro area reported 1,000,100 payroll jobs of all kinds were filled in May, including part-time positions. This compares to 976,900 positions filled a year earlier and 945,300 in May 2016.

March marked the first month employment in metro Nashville had surpassed the 1-million-jobs level.