A lot of people in San Antonio and South Texas drive Toyota pickup trucks made in San Antonio, but how would you like to be one of the people who builds them? Toyota in San Antonio is looking for at least 200 new workers, with starting pay at “about $14.50 and hour” with benefits and climbing from there.
Demand for Toyota pickup trucks exceeds supply. It has for some time, and even last year’s production of 236,000 full-size Tundra and mid-size Tacoma trucks wasn’t sufficient to meet market demand. To meet demand, San Antonio’s Toyota Motor Manufacturing Texas assembly plant is expanding to Saturday production in 2016, which means hiring new assembly line workers will begin immediately.
“We will start hiring right now, and we hope to keep a pace of 20-30 new hires a month, so we think by the time the hiring is done, the training is done, the quality checks are done, we’ll be able to launch the new schedule by the second quarter 2016,” said Mario Lozoya, director of government relations and external affairs at the San Antonio facility. “We currently have 3,100 workers, and our 23 on-site suppliers have about the same number, and they will have to watch our growth. Collectively the entire park will probably grow by 500 jobs.”
Interested? Click here to apply with Aerotek, the Toyota hiring agency. The Rivard Report will post links after the Labor Day weekend to connect applicants with on-site suppliers as they prepare to hire additional workers.
“We conducted an internal study to explore ways to increase production,” Lozoya said. “The fact of the matter is we can’t meet demand. That’s a good problem to have: We just can’t meet demand for both trucks. We’ve been building five days a week, Monday through Friday, two shifts and we have worked overtime on Saturdays whenever we need to catch up. Now we are looking at a Saturday day shift as a standard production line. To do that, we need more workers. We know for sure we will hire 200, but it could be north of that. Entry level assembly workers start at $14.50 or so, and it goes up from there.
“It means our internal workers are going to have a lot of opportunities for promotion,” Lozoya said, as Toyota fills the leadership positions that will supervise the new production shift on Saturday.
San Antonio’s Toyota facility, which has been ranked number one in the world for production efficiency, was designed to build 200,000 trucks a year. There has been speculation in the community and auto industry that the San Antonio plant would add a second assembly line at some point as Toyota continued to gain market share in the U.S. market.
Today the plant produces a new Toyota Tundra or Tacoma every 60 seconds.
*Featured/top image: Toyota Tundra manufacturing line in the Southside, San Antonio. Photo courtesy of Toyota Texas.
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I’m sure Toyota has contributed to the SA economy, but they hire workers, workers get comfortable, purchase new or used truck, maybe new apartment. Then the blow, your let go because the demand is no longer there. Not good..