Industry response to sales uptick: We’re hiring!

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Updated: February 1, 2012 11:20AM

DETROIT – As new-vehicle sales enter a third year of recovery, hiring in the auto industry has begun to accelerate at a brisker pace.

The signs of expansion — both large and small — are everywhere.

Ford Motor Co. announced recently that it plans to add 12,000 jobs around the world. Supplier Continental sent recruiters to the Detroit auto show in January to fill 150 openings.

General Motors and Volkswagen are ramping up production at new or retooled plants in Michigan and Tennessee. Hyundai is adding 50 engineers at its Ann Arbor, Mich., technical center.

Nissan says it will build a new assembly plant in Aquascalientes, Mexico, but also needs 150 more engineers this year at its research and development center near Detroit.

BMW is adding workers as it increases capacity at its assembly plant in Spartanburg, S.C. Denso wants 50 new engineers in North America.

In fact, the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich., expects U.S. auto manufacturing hiring to outpace North American auto production this year. CAR estimates that the industry added only 26,000 auto factory jobs last year when U.S. vehicle production grew 11 percent. But it says new hires will jump to 58,000 this year even though production is expected to grow only half as much as it did in 2011.

Fed-up dealers: Stop nitpicking on store rules

When the factory rep is eyeballing the toilet paper in your dealership bathroom to make sure it’s appropriately soft and cushy, it makes a dealer say, “Hey, enough already.”

Dealers are butting heads with manufacturers over facility requirements that seem silly, intrusive or just outrageously expensive for the little payback that seems likely. And some factory field personnel nitpick little things even beyond the written standards — such as the case of a luxury dealer who was told to buy better toilet paper.

Dealers say they understand the need to keep their stores attractive and clean. But they don’t like factory executives dictating the type of towel bar they should hang in the bathroom or pressuring them to replace items that are in perfect condition but just don’t fit a certain color scheme or style.

Talks with dealers around the country reveal these examples:

Chevrolet wants dealers with fairly new gray tile on their showroom floors to tear it up and put down new tile in a lighter shade of gray. Dealers with window frames in colors other than the manufacturer’s silver standard have been asked to change them. The cost for either revision can run to many tens of thousands of dollars.

Some Audi regional managers want dealers to allow only a certain style of picture frame and computer mouse on sales desks.

Technicians at Mercedes-Benz dealerships complying with the Autohaus standards must use blue toolboxes instead of the typical red ones — even though customers rarely visit the shop.

Honda once required cubicle walls at showroom sales desks that were so high that they prevented sales reps from seeing when customers came in.

Bill Ford seeks mobility for all

In 2004, a coalition of environmental groups lampooned Bill Ford, depicting him as a cartoon Pinocchio because Ford Motor Co. had failed to live up to its commitments to improve the fuel economy of SUVs.

Such charges were painful for Bill Ford, who has always tried to portray himself as an auto executive who cares about a greener planet.

But the intervening years have vindicated the great-grandson of Henry Ford. His company, indeed the entire industry, has embraced higher fuel economy and environmental stewardship to a degree that was unimaginable a decade or two ago. Now, with the automaker racking up steady profits, Bill Ford is ready to take the environmental debate into new areas and push the company to meet new challenges.

In 2006, Bill Ford relinquished his CEO role to industry outsider Alan Mulally, who led Ford Motor back into the black.

Now the automaker is embarking on one of the most ambitious product offensives in its history, centered on better fuel economy. The company is launching a Focus Electric, a hybrid small minivan called the C-Max and several fuel-efficient versions of its Fusion sedan, including a plug-in hybrid capable of 100 mpg.

Ford Motor has moved from industry laggard to among the leaders in fuel economy. Even pickup buyers are embracing F-series pickups with V-6 EcoBoost engines, as opposed to traditional V-8s.

Mulally has actively promoted fuel economy as part of the automaker’s mission. But Bill Ford, now the auto company’s executive chairman, championed the cause before Mulally’s arrival and before many in the industry took it seriously.

For the full stories and more, visit autonews.com.