Toyota ’s San Antonio truck plant is currently mulling over in excess of 14,000 applications in hopes of finding an eventual 850 new hires for both temporary and permanent positions. Toyota’s move is intended to drive the plant’s ramped up production of the full-size Tundra, as well as beginning production of the Tacoma for the first time.
The San Antonio Toyota plant notified their roughly 1,850 workers today during a meeting of the upcoming changes and new hires. This news will provide a challenge for plant workers in the near future as they must adapt to accommodate the addition of the mid-size Tacoma production, in addition to increased production of the full-size Tundra pickup.
The expansion at the San Antonio plant is partially driven by the recent announcement that Toyota will shutter the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant in California as of March 2010. The NUMMI plant was responsible for the production of the Toyota Corolla and Tacoma, the latter of which will be shifted to the San Antonio plant. The NUMMI plant was a joint venture with GM, and currently employs 4,700 workers.
Toyota’s massive 2.2-million-square-foot San Antonio manufacturing plant is scheduled to return to two production shifts as of February 2010. The new shift will consist of a combination of existing and new hires in the form of temporary and permanent jobs. The plant plans to begin building the Tacoma with a trial run set for late spring, and full production set to take place towards the end of June or early July 2010.
In order to prepare the San Antonio plant for the addition of the Tacoma production the plant underwent a $100 million retooling process. The entire process has been run on a very tight schedule, prompting County Judge Nelson Wolf to say, “This is a much more aggressive schedule than what the earlier projections were. It’s good for us that they are moving as quickly as they are.”
