The industry that put Michigan on the map is nowhere near sucking its last breath. The Ann Arbor-based Center for Automotive Research (CAR) released a study this week at the Lansing Community College (LCC) estimating that the auto industry will need to fill 40,000 new positions within the next eight years.
“They’ll be hiring at a magnitude that we haven’t seen for a quarter of a century,” says Bob Sherer, executive director of the Capita Area Manufacturing Council.
All
of the jobs, including the production positions, call for employees who
have math, science and technology training and expertise. The industry
will need an estimated 24,000 production employees, 22,000 salaried and
technical workers, and 1,000 engineers a year.
“There
certainly will be an impact here, we just don’t know what it is,”
Sherer says. The CAR study didn’t specify how many jobs would be
created in Lansing.
The study points to
buyouts and an aging workforce as the main impetus behind the
anticipated hiring surge. The new hires could start as early as this
September.
“It will be a challenge,” says
Sherer about finding and training 40,000 new employees. “This is a
large amount of hiring in short period of time.”
But what a good challenge to have.
Source: Kate Tykocki, Michigan Works
Ivy Hughes, development news editor, can be reached here.
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