More than repaying taxpayer loans, increased sales or profits, hiring will be the most credible evidence automakers are recovering. Advertisement Two respected sources foresee the industry adding about 88,000 jobs over the next year.
The forecast, from the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor and IHS Global Insight Inc. in Waltham, Mass., predicts automotive employment in the U.S., including automakers and suppliers, will grow from an average of 565,700 this year to 653,600 in 2011 and 742,200 in 2012.
That's well below prerecession employment of 827,900 in 2007 but strong enough to trigger positive ripples through stronger retail sales.
"It's never going to be what it was," said Kristen Dziczek, a CAR research director. "But it's not as bleak as the textile mills leaving the Carolinas. We will still be driving."
Between 2006 and the end of 2009, Chrysler Group LLC, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. shed 117,530, or 40 percent, of their U.S. workers.
Despite that trauma, Michigan is well positioned geographically and logistically for any new hiring. Detroit's GM and Auburn Hills-based Chrysler have been quicker to mothball factories closer to the East Coast because it cost more to ship parts from the Midwest.
Dziczek expects automakers will begin hiring before most suppliers. GM President Mark Reuss already has said there will be an opportunity to call back some of the second-tier wage people GM hired then laid off before last year's bankruptcy.
Chrysler has filled many design and engineering jobs with contract workers to replace some of the 5,000 white-collar people who left in late 2008.
Likely locations to add workers are Detroit-Hamtramck, where GM is to launch the Chevrolet Volt later this year, and the Flint South engine plant, where GM is to produce 1.4-liter engines for the Chevrolet Cruze and a generator for the battery-powered Volt.
Chrysler, which is to launch the 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee next month at its Jefferson North plant, likely will add a second shift by the end of the year for the Grand Cherokee and another seven-passenger crossover utility vehicle.
