Daimler adding 605 jobs at Gaston County Freightliner plant

Daimler Trucks North America says it will add more than 600 jobs to its Freightliner manufacturing plant in Mount Holly over the next three months.

The Portland, Ore.-based heavy-duty truck manufacturer plans to add a third shift at its Mount Holly plant and fill 580 manufacturing and 25 supervisor, engineering and administrative positions by mid-July, according to a news release.

The 605 new employees will be added to the company’s payroll to meet rising demand for the company’s Freightliner brand. The Mount Holly plant produces Freightliner medium-duty and severe-duty trucks.

“The untapped capacity at the Mount Holly plant provides us the capacity and the leverage to meet customer delivery schedules in today’s fast-paced economy,” Roger Nielson, Daimler’s chief operating officer, said in the news release.

The new jobs will pay an average of $14.92 per hour and include two weeks of paid vacation, 14 paid holidays annually, a low-cost benefits package and a college tuition reimbursement program for employees who want to continue their education while working.

Interested applicants can contact the state employment office or visit the ncworks.gov using the search word “Daimler.”

Daimler’s decision to add new jobs is a positive sign for the trucking industry and overall economy, industry analysts say.

New positions mean both the company and its customers, heavy truck fleet operators, are confident market conditions will improve to the point they’ll need more trucks to haul more goods, said Richard Hilgert, a Morningstar analyst who studies the automaker industry.

“They have to be pretty sure of what they’ve got in their forecasts to require this additional number of people,” said Timothy Kraus, president of the Heavy Duty Manufacturers Association in Research Triangle Park. “They’re feeling pretty solid.”

Daimler, one of the world’s largest heavy-duty truck manufacturers, has facilities in Oregon and Mexico but is expanding in North Carolina because it likes the workforce, Kraus said.

Gaston County’s unemployment rate in March fell to 5.6 percent from 7 percent at the same time last year, according to the state Department of Commerce. That remains higher than the Mecklenburg rate of 5.1 percent and the statewide average of 5.4 percent.

Business and economic development leaders see Freightliner’s workforce expansion as a sign that Gaston County, which prospered in the age of textile mills, could be seeing employment returning to pre-recession levels. The county’s unemployment rate reached 11 percent in 2008.

The company is a large taxpayer and utility customer, and one of the biggest employers for the region, said Donny Hicks, executive director of the Gaston County Economic Development Commission.

“They have a tremendous direct impact from everything they do,” he said. “It’d be hard to find much better news for us.”

Daimler has about 8,000 employees in the Carolinas, including nearly 6,000 at Charlotte-area facilities. The company’s Freightliner plants have a long history of adding and removing jobs in response to market trends.

“The heavy truck market is highly cyclical,” said Hilgert with Morningstar. “The industry can turn on a dime where demand can be cut more than half if the fleet operators perceive an economic downturn coming down the line.”

In early 2012, about 1,100 of 2,100 Freightliner workers in the Rowan County town of Cleveland who had been laid off in 2009 were called back.

In February 2013, the company announced plans to cut nearly 1,200 jobs from Freightliner plants in Cleveland, Gastonia and Mount Holly but announced only 340 job cuts the next month, explaining that market share gains reduced the need for downsizing.

This story was originally published May 4, 2015 at 1:22 PM with the headline "Daimler adding 605 jobs at Gaston County Freightliner plant."