{"id":46346,"date":"2012-01-13T08:14:37","date_gmt":"2012-01-13T13:14:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=46346"},"modified":"2012-01-13T08:14:37","modified_gmt":"2012-01-13T13:14:37","slug":"nissan-toyota-hyundai-planning-job-hiring-binge-in-detroit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2012\/01\/nissan-toyota-hyundai-planning-job-hiring-binge-in-detroit\/","title":{"rendered":"Nissan, Toyota, Hyundai Planning Job Hiring Binge in Detroit"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
A Venza at the new Toyota engineering center near Detroit, which also includes a new test track.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It may be the home of the Big Three but Detroit has also become a major engineering center for foreign makers as diverse as Mercedes-Benz and India\u2019s Tata Motors.\u00a0 And now, three of the largest Asian makers are stepping up hiring as they expand their Motor City R&D centers.<\/p>\n

Collectively, Toyota, Nissan and Hyundai expect to add nearly 400 employees in the Detroit suburbs this year, with additional engineering-related jobs to be offered in 2013 and beyond.<\/p>\n

With Nissan moving more engineering work to the US, the Japanese automaker is plans to hire as many as 150 additional engineers this year at its technical center in Farmington Hills to handle a steadily increasing work load.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Your Trusted Source!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t hired any new engineers in three or four years,\u201d said Carla Bailo, president Nissan Technical Center North America. In addition, the center lost employees following the 2008 financial crisis. \u201cWe have a lot of very good senior engineers. But we need to bring on new and emerging talent,\u201d Bailo said.<\/p>\n

The tech center currently has a full-time staff of 800, she said in an interview. But Nissan is increasing the tempo of its product development effort and increasing the amount of work done at its Farmington Hills, which is responsible for product engineering of vehicle bodies throughout North and Latin America. One of the Farmington Hills projects, the 2013 Nissan Pathfinder, was unveiled officially at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.<\/p>\n

One area in which the Farmington Hills technical center is taking on additional responsibility is in the area of fuel cells and electric vehicles. The Farmington Hills technical center has had a small laboratory staffed by PHDs working on fuel cells for some time. However, it is being expanded to encompass research on electric vehicle batteries and recharging of electric vehicles.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe used to hire mechanical engineers and some electrical engineers but now we\u2019re hiring chemical engineers as well,\u201d said Bailo, who is based in Farmington Hills but is also responsible for Nissan Technical centers in Mexico and Brazil.<\/p>\n

(Daimler, BMW announce major expansions, new jobs, at plants in the Carolinas. <\/em>Click Here<\/span><\/a> for more.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Hyundai, meanwhile, will invest $15 million to expand the Hyundai American Technical Center in Superior Township, near the university town of Ann Arbor, setting up, among other things, a 50,000 square-foot facility that can be used for extreme hot and cold weather testing.\u00a0 With construction set to begin by May, as many as 50 engineers and other workers will be hired when work is completed next year.<\/p>\n

“This is the first time to build this kind of facility outside of Korea,” said Sung Hwan, president of the Korean maker\u2019s R&D center.<\/p>\n

As for Toyota, \u201cWe\u2019re adding at least 100 new jobs\u201d at the Toyota engineering center in Washtenaw County, notes Jim Lentz, the Japanese maker\u2019s top American executive, \u201cand there\u2019ll be more in the future.\u00a0 Detroit is the hub of our engineering operations in North America.\u201d<\/p>\n

A significant plus, added Lentz, is the proximity of so many schools, like the University of Michigan, with major engineering departments.<\/p>\n

The biggest challenge could prove to be what the Engineering Society of Detroit describes as an increasing shortage of trained engineers.\u00a0 During the depths of the recession there were sharp cuts at the Detroit Big Three and even Nissan and other outside makers had to cut staff in Detroit-area R&D operations.\u00a0 But those have largely either left the city, retired \u2013 or found new jobs.<\/p>\n

Nissan\u2019s Bailo says she expects to get some experienced personnel but expects to have to attract most of the new engineers straight off university campuses.<\/p>\n

Paul A. Eisenstein contributed to this report.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is the Motor City, after all, and though it may be headquarters for the “Big 3,” a growing number of foreign makers are setting up big R&D centers near Detroit – Nissan, Toyota and Hyundai planning a hiring binge in the months ahead. TheDetroitBureau.com has more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20009,"featured_media":46347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[151],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46346"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20009"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46346"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=46346"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=46346"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=46346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}