HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Virtually every industry in North Alabama had its share of economic hardship. Manufacturers and supply chain are among them.
Our WZDX News reporter has the details on where we are a year later from Mazda Toyota Manufacturing, and business leaders with the Huntsville-Madison County Chamber of Commerce.
"We're still on track to start production this year," says Mazda Toyota Manufacturing Corporate Communications, Toni Eberhart.
University of Alabama researchers say the biggest loss among manufacturing firms was transportation equipment.
Fortunately for MTM, Eberhart says they only experienced a slight delay in production. "The ability to receive supplies and get the support team in place to be able to come to the site to do some equipment installation, it did result in a short amount of time in delay," she says.
About 3,600 job losses were reported last year for transportation equipment manufacturing in Alabama. However, MTM was spared on job losses, and was actually gaining jobs.
MTM has held a series of hiring events, and they're now in phase two. "We have chosen to do phases so that the process and the opportunity for candidates is fair and as timely as possible," says Eberhart.
MTM is having a virtual "Automotive Manufacturing Hiring Event happening this Thursday with opportunities for multiple jobs.
"Whether it's in our quality department, our assembly department, our paint department, our body weld, stamping department. Any of our productions departments, you can be placed into as a production team member," says Eberhart.
2021 is expected to be a better year economically with manufacturing rising by close to 2% in Alabama.
"We have many companies that have been able to be resilient in through this. Not just in manufacturing but other industries too, there's opportunity for people who have lost their jobs in different fields," says Huntsville/Madison County Chamber VP, Marketing & Communications, Claire Aiello.
For more information on the virtual "Automotive Manufacturing Hiring Event", click here.