Ford Motor Company is set to hire hundreds of American workers at one of its Chicago, Illinois-based auto manufacturing plants, executives announced this week.
While automakers like General Motors (GM) have spent much of the year laying off American workers, Ford is increasing its workforce in Chicago, adding another 450 manufacturing jobs. The workers will be manufacturing police vehicles and hybrid SUVs in a separate assembly line, according to details released by the Chicago Tribune.
Ford will spend $50 million converting a facility, near its Chicago assembly plant, to be fully operational by the fourth quarter, where the 450 new hires will modify vehicles to use as police cars and where workers will manufacture the Explorer hybrid SUV and the hybrid Lincoln Aviator SUV.
Altogether this year, Ford will have hired nearly 1,000 American workers in the Chicago area, as the corporation announced 500 new hires in February. There are now currently nearly 5,000 hourly workers at Ford’s main Chicago plant and about 1,100 hourly workers at the stamping plant in Chicago.
While Ford increases American production, GM has already closed its Lordstown, Ohio assembly plant — disrupting the small community and laying off about 1,600 U.S. workers — as well as sending manufacturing jobs to South Korea. The automaker, headed by CEO Mary Barra, announced last year it would close four American plants, including Detroit-Hamtramck and Warren Transmission in Michigan, Lordstown Assembly in Ohio, and Baltimore Operations in Maryland.
American manufacturing is vital to the U.S. economy, as every one manufacturing job supports an additional 7.4 American jobs in other industries. Decades of free trade, with deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), have devastated American manufacturing and U.S. workers’ job prospects, as well as suppressed their wages.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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