JCB will start production at its new Southside facility at the end of 2026, but 2027 could be a more pivotal year for the company.
JCB plans to hire 600 workers next year and could build out a dealership near its Palo Alto Road factory, announced Lord Anthony Bamford, the company’s chairman, during a visit to the construction site on Monday.
The British manufacturer announced plans to build a San Antonio factory in October 2023 and started construction in June 2024. The 1-million-square-foot factory will employ around 1,500 people and produce access machinery such as telescopic handlers called telehandlers and scissor lifts that can move workers and equipment dozens of feet overhead.
David Carver, operations director for JCB Texas, said the facility will produce its first piece of equipment in October and hire 200 workers by then.
“We’ll be close to about 800 jobs by the time that we’ve got the telehandler, by the end of next year,” Carver said.
In October 2025, Carver said the company would try to hit the 1,500-job threshold by 2030 or 2031.
JCB received a package of incentives and grants worth a total of $32 million from state, county and city officials when the company decided to set up shop in San Antonio.
Part of that deal involved hiring requirements. Bexar County’s incentives, worth around $12 million, required JCB to hire 995 workers by 2027. JCB still plans to meet those requirements, Carver said. Local officials have clawed back money for similar incentive packages when businesses don’t keep up their end of the agreement.
JCB expanded its footprint in San Antonio from 500,000 square feet to 1 million square feet after U.S. tariffs were implemented last year. Standing in front of JCB equipment on Monday, Bamford doubled down on JCB’s commitment to the American market.
“There’s not only a normal tariff, there’s a steel tariff on top. Virtually all of that machine is steel. If it’s imported, it’s very expensive. We buy some steel in America, and we’ll be buying a lot more,” he said. “This is a direct result of Trump wanting to bring back manufacturing, which I understand, and this is an example of it, and I’m happy for us to do it.”
The San Antonio facility would help JCB increase its presence in the U.S. market and in North America — Bamford said a portion of the products would be exported. JCB’s sales total around $12 billion. Bamford said its largest competitor is Caterpillar, which has sales revenues between $55 billion and $60 billion.
“We felt that our market growth justified us manufacturing in America,” Bamford said. “We just need to be more American. This is largest continuous market in the world for our sort of product.”
That push will happen on the local level, as well. Bamford also announced a planned JCB dealership near the Southside factory.
Boss JCB, the manufacturer’s local distributor, would operate that site as well as a new facility in Converse. David Record, Boss JCB’s general manager, said they were JCB’s leading dealer in 2024 and 2025 and had grown from just two employees in 2018 to more than 60 today.
The Converse facility will open by the end of the year. Record said Boss JCB had outgrown its current site near Sinclair Road and Loop 410 in Southeast San Antonio.
Record said Boss JCB will hire 10 more workers for the 19,000-square-foot location in Converse, where there will be more space to do maintenance work on JCB equipment.
“It will be our largest facility,” he said.
Boss JCB also has facilities in Corpus Christi and Austin. A new dealership on the South Side near JCB’s factory is still in the early planning stages, but could open in May or June of 2027 and employ between 12 to 15 new workers, Record said.
