It’s been great news to watch vehicle sales increasing lately and it is creating great problems for some automakers because they are running out of stock. This is true especially for the Jeep Wrangler. This favorite off roading vehicle set an all time sales record in May by selling 14,454 units. This puts the total sales for this year at a 34 percent increase and with that increase, Chrysler is planning on expanding. This means that their Northern Ohio plant could end up adding additional manufacturing jobs before the end of this year. Although Sergio Marchionne is putting it on record as stating he’d like to set sites on creating Jeep Wrangler sales outside of America, so there is a change that there won’t be too many new hires in the near future. It looks like we may have to wait awhile, but we can plan on seeing the expansion and hiring begin later on.
The Toledo, Ohio Chrysler plant is on schedule to build new Jeep Liberties until August. Then they will get a makeover that will put 300,000 new square feet of production space into the all ready 3.6 million square foot complex. This expansion is currently estimated to run about $500 million. With that expansion Chrysler will need to fill about 1,100 new positions and those should be available to apply for before the end of next year. With all of that going on, plans are underway for what will replace the Jeep Liberty when it ends its production run in August. If the new model comes close to the Wrangler’s popularity, Chrysler could see some amazing results for their Jeep line.
The Toledo Ohio plant is the only Chrysler complex that produces the Jeep Wrangler and due to the limitations of the plant maintenance they have been unable to run around the clock so there has been no third shift staff on the production lines. The hopes are the new expansion will allow the addition of the extra shift.
News Source: Automotive News