Ford likely will hire more workers than the 12,000 jobs it pledged to add by the end of 2015.
“There is a high probability we will surpass that number,” Joe Hinrichs, Ford president of the Americas, said Wednesday.
Hinrichs was at Ford’s retooled Kansas City plant where almost 5,000 employees have started assembling the 2015 Ford Transit that goes on sale this summer.
The workforce includes an additional 2,000 employees, most of them new hires, for a third crew added last August. Ford has invested $1.1 billion at the Kansas City plant so it could produce the full-size commercial van now and the 2015 F-150 full-size pickup next year.
Ford fulfilled more than 75% of its goal to create 12,000 hourly jobs in the U.S. it committed to fill by the end of next year in its 2011 agreement with the UAW. Extra workers have been added in Flat Rock, Wayne (Michigan Assembly), Louisville, Ky., and Lima, Ohio. Roughly 300 jobs will be added at Ford’s Cleveland engine plant later this year.
This year Ford will hire nearly 5,000 hourly and salaried employees in the U.S.
Hinrichs said hiring beyond that will depend on sales. Ford is launching more than three times as many new models in North America this year as it would in an average year (16 compared with five last year). Globally the company is introducing 23 new models this year.
Quality is the top priority, Hinrichs said. Ford took a $500-million charge against its first-quarter earnings to cover warranty, recall and service costs for vehicles dating back to the 2001 model year.
Hinrichs said warranty costs in the last couple months have been the lowest to date.
The Transit launch is deliberately slow because it is a new and complex vehicle with a choice of three roof heights, two wheelbases, three body lengths and a choice of gasoline or diesel engine. It is built by new employees in a plant with new body and paint shops, and a new final assembly line and new stamping presses.
The Transit has traditionally been built and sold in Europe. For the 2015 model year, it will be available in North America and replaces the Econoline van which will be phased out. Ford will continue to sell the E-Series cutaway and stripped chassis and has been working with fleet customers for a couple years to prepare them for the switch from the boxy E-Series to the Euro-styled Transit.
Kansas City is essentially two plants under one roof. The aluminum body F-150 portion will be retooled and equipped with a new body shop to make the all-new 2015 pickup.
“These upgrades have helped make the Kansas City plant the global standard for Ford’s new manufacturing facilities across the world,” said Bruce Hettle, Ford vice president North America manufacturing.
Hinrichs said the Kansas City plant is the final piece of Ford’s overhaul of a number of plants It is the culmination of a plan that was seven years in the making, he said.
Kansas City, for example, used to make the Ford Escape, which was moved to the retooled Louisville plant.
