A third shift beginning next week at Chrysler’s Jefferson North Assembly Plant in Detroit will add about 1,100 new jobs.
The new shift is being added to keep up with increased demand for the Jeep Grand Cherokee.
Brent Snavely from the Detroit Free Press has the story:
Adding the third crew now was driven by the mounting cost of overtime Jefferson North's workers have logged in recent months. Newly hired workers start at a lower wage to which the UAW agreed in its 2011 contract. "Having a third shift at Jefferson North ... is going to help normalize the work schedule and give our employees back some of their personal time and still allow us to meet the demand that we are seeing from our customers," said Chrysler spokeswoman Jodi Tinson. Through September, U.S. sales of the Grand Cherokee are up 30.1% from a year earlier to 112,075 though sales of the Dodge Durango, the other SUV assembled at Jefferson North, have declined 23.4% to 30,052.
There are also plans for a third shift at the automaker’s Warren truck plant in March.
Chrysler has added about 7,000 jobs in North America since declaring Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2009, Snavely reports.
- Jordan Wyant, Michigan Radio Newsroom
