Continental Tire the Americas (CTA) LLC says that construction on its new plant in Sumter, S.C., continues to remain ahead of schedule as 2012 draws to a close. Construction began June 15 (see Continental plant construction 'officially' begins).
One month later Continental announced that the first job postings for the plant (see Now hiring! Conti posts first Sumter jobs). The first employee, a civil engineer, was hired in April. and CTA has recruited for more than 50 positions at the Sumter plant since.
“This year we focused on hiring key members of our management team and a variety of engineers,” says Craig Baartman, Sumter plant manager, whose position was announced in August. “We plan to have our complete management team on board in 2013.”
In addition, CTA hired 18 multi-craft technician employees in 2012. Each will spend 12 weeks training at Continental tire plants in Illinois, Germany, Portugal, France and Mexico.
CTA plans to recruit approximately 300 positions next year, including department managers and supervisors, functional support such as finance and IT, and production and technician positions. Current job postings can be viewed at www.readySC.org/Conti.
The site, located off of U.S. Highway 521 in, Sumter sits on 330 acres and will soon be a 1 million-square-foot production facility. The construction process for the plant is expected to be finished by the end of 2013, with production beginning in late 2013 or early 2014.
CTA says the plant will reach a production capacity of more than four million units per year in 2017. A second phase is expected to bring the plant’s full production capacity to approximately eight million units per year by 2021.
Altogether, CTA will invest more than $500 million into the Sumter plant and will manufacture passenger and light truck tires. Nearly 1,600 jobs will be created as a result of this investment.
