General Motors announced in a news release on Thursday that it will nearly double the workforce at one of its Detroit plants by early next year.
The company’s Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly will add a second shift, providing the Motor City with over 1,200 new jobs, both hourly and salaried. This will bring the number of jobs at the plant up from its current 1,600 to around 2,800.
The car manufacturer needs to add these jobs in order to fulfill the forecasted demand for the five cars that will be produced at the plant. The company’s Detroit facility currently builds the Cadillac ELR and the Chevrolet Volt, Impala, and Malibu; it plans to start production of the Cadillac CT6 by early 2016, the same time that the second shift is scheduled to begin. GM is presently searching for workers to fill to 1,200 new roles.
Within the past six years the company has invested $1 billion in the Detroit plant, and it has since become one of its most active production facilities in North America.
This isn’t the only good news Detroit has seen lately. Just last month e-commerce giant Amazon announced that it would be doubling its workforce in the Michigan city as well. Peter Faricy, Amazon Marketplace vice president, said that if the company is able to attract 100 more engineers to its Detroit-based office, it would become “a self-sustaining technology hub.”