Jobs at the Orange County operations of big automakers ticked up a bit in the past 12 months, despite Ford Motor Co.’s woes and Mitsubishi Motors North America Inc.’s sluggish sales.
The eight largest automakers with operations here reported a 3% rise in workers in the past 12 months to 3,765 people, according to this week’s Business Journal list, which ranks companies by local employment.
The automakers do sales and marketing and other corporate work here. They also design, research and develop vehicles.
Design shops here include Mitsubishi Motors Research & Development in Cypress, Ford California Advanced Product Creation in Irvine, Hyundai Kia America Design Center in Irvine, Mazda Research & Development of North America Inc. in Irvine, Mercedes-Benz Advanced Design of North America Inc. in Irvine and Toyota Calty Design Research Inc., Newport Beach.
South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Co. again tops the list this year.
Hyundai, made up of Fountain Valley-based Hyundai Motor America Inc. and Irvine’s Kia Motors America Inc., upped its local employment by 10% to 1,203 workers.
Hyundai Motor America boosted its OC workforce by 6% to 917 people. Kia added 24% more workers for 286 people.
In January, Kia’s employees moved into a $70 million Irvine headquarters it had built along the Santa Ana (I-5) Freeway.
Hyundai’s U.S. sales have slowed of late, coming in flat for 2006 at 455,520 vehicles. But the automaker is targeting more than 500,000 auto sales this year.
For 2006, Kia sold 294,302 autos in the U.S., up 7%.
Hyundai, South Korea’s largest automaker, has been investing heavily in the U.S., opening an Alabama plant and a $50 million test-drive facility in California in recent years.
Kia postponed a planned Georgia plant in 2006 after its Korean Chairman Chung Mong-koo was arrested for embezzlement. He was convicted and sent to prison.
Construction is back on with production in Georgia set to start in 2009, according to Automotive News.
Ford, No. 2 on the list, cut its local workforce by 7% in the past year to 500 workers. But the company boosted the number of workers at its Premier Automotive Group in Irvine by 22% to 270 people, helped by a gain at Volvo Cars of North America LLC.
Besides Volvo, Premier consists of Land Rover North America, Jaguar Cars North America and Aston Martin.
Premier is a relative bright spot for Ford,except for Jaguar, which has been dragging sales down for several years.
In February, Jaguar’s sales in the U.S., its largest market, were down nearly 28% to 1,191 cars. Ford is set to announce a buyer for its Aston Martin unit but plans to hold onto Jaguar, which does well in China.
Land Rover sold 47,774 autos in the U.S. last year, an 11% increase. Volvo’s North American sales were down 6% to 115,807 units in 2006.
Volvo boosted its local workforce by 13% to 125 workers. Ford doesn’t break out employment for Land Rover, Jaguar or Aston Martin.
Employment at Ford’s other business here, sales and marketing for Lincoln-Mercury, was flat at 49 workers.
No. 4 Cypress-based Mitsubishi Motors, the U.S. arm of Japan’s Mitsubishi Motor Co., was flat at 487 local workers.
Mitsubishi is working to recover from a slump that began a few years ago. Mitsubishi sold 345,000 autos in 2003. The next year, it sold fewer than half of that. It’s continued the downward trend.
Last year, Mitsubishi sold 118,558 units, down 4% from 2005. The company is targeting 170,000 units by 2010.
No. 5 Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc., part of Toyota Motor Corp., also had flat employment at 470 employees. Japan’s top automaker houses several units in OC, including Calty and a Lexus Western area office and a sales office.
