Jobs galore as Toyota, Mazda come to Alabama
MONTGOMERY, Ala. – When Hyundai was considering where to build a pickup two years ago, the company’s top U.S. executive said he feared there just weren’t enough trained workers in central Alabama to support that kind of project.
The comments from then-Hyundai Motor America President Dave Zuchowski surprised state and local leaders at the time.
It led Alabama’s Commerce Secretary Greg Canfield to defend the workforce pipeline in a state where nearly 40,000 people work in the auto manufacturing industry.
Now, a joint Toyota-Mazda plant is on the way to Huntsville and is expected to employ 4,000 people along with “three or four times” that many at a network of suppliers across the state. And again Canfield dismissed the idea that the state may not have enough workers to fill those jobs.
“I don’t know where that speculation has come from, but it’s not speculation that we’ve been concerned with,” he said. “We’ve got a plan that addresses workforce availability short term, intermediate term and long term.
Toyota and Mazda announced they will jointly build a $1.6 billion auto plant in Huntsville, ending the search for a site that drew offers from many states and cities.
To lure the plant that will make up to 300,000 vehicles a year starting in 2021, Alabama offered an incentives package it valued at more than $350 million, including job training.
At Wednesday’s plant announcement, Canfield called Ed Castille, head of the state job training agency AIDT, “key” to the development process before turning to Toyota and Mazda executives to promise that workforce development “is something we know how to do.”
The state’s automakers built more than a million vehicles in 2016. Most of those came from the Hyundai plant in Montgomery. Yet Hyundai is still competing for skilled workers here, particularly in some key areas.
Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama spokesman Robert Burns said industrial maintenance is the plant’s “weak spot” when it comes to finding and recruiting the right people. The plant formed a partnership with Trenholm State Community College to help shore up the ranks, using them as summer interns and — in some cases — hiring them.
The job involves the care and upkeep of the machines that keep the plant running. It only requires a twoyear degree and can pay $80,000 or more.