The ramp-up to hiring 4,000 employees at Mazda Toyota Manufacturing in Huntsville is almost complete.
The $2.3 billion joint venture between rival Japanese automakers is one-of-a-kind in the United States and MTM promised to create 4,000 jobs when the project was announced in 2018.
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Now nearly a year after the first vehicle rolled off the production line, Mazda Toyota said it has 3,700 people on payroll – leaving just 300 unfilled jobs to meet its obligations.
“We’re getting close but we can always use more,” said Janette Hostettler, senior vice president of production at Mazda Toyota.
Mazda Toyota has been encouraging job applicants since well before the plant was near completion. And even as MTM approaches that threshold of 4,000 employees, Hostettler said the company is still looking for those interested in working at the sprawling plant in Limestone County.
“3,700 team members strong,” she said. “We’re going to hire about 4,000 team members all together. But if anybody’s out there, we also need engineers. We need safety folks. We need administration folks. So if you’re out there, come on over and you don’t even have to have manufacturing experience to be our production members. You can come in here and we’ll teach you. Our maintenance guys, we will teach you everything you want to know. And we’ve got a lot of technology out there that needs some maintenance folks too.”
Hostettler spoke following a celebratory event attended by Masashi Aihara, the president of MTM, as well as Akira Marumoto, president and CEO of Mazda Motor Corporation, and Akio Toyoda, president and CEO of Toyota Motor Corporation and Gov. Kay Ivey. Marumoto, Toyoda and Ivey exchanged gifts at the ceremony and signed an aerial photo of the plant to commemorate the project.
Toyoda was making his first visit to MTM, noting that he was on his first overseas trip since the onset of COVID-19.
Ivey got a tour of the facility before the ceremony as well.
“You’ve heard me say it before but you have selected the best place to do business here in Alabama,” Ivey said. “In fact, I’m extremely proud of the fact that Mazda is calling Alabama home for its United States manufacturing facility. That really makes us proud. Alabamians know how to make cars. And the 4,000 some folks that you have already working here, no doubt, will show you that.”
The plants two production lines are building Toyota’s Corolla Cross and Mazda’s Mazda CX-50.
MTM also marked Thursday’s event by making 10 grants worth a total of $180,000 to Huntsville-area non-profit organizations. Applications were opened for the grants in March through the Community Foundation of Greater Huntsville.
The grants offer support to local and regional organizations that serve their community through Education, Economic Impact and Quality of Life programming. MTM Grant Fund recipients included Huntsville Hospital Foundation, Agape of North Alabama, the United Way of Madison County, Drake State Technical College, Limestone County Career Technical Center, Madison County Career Tech Center, Madison City Schools, Athens State University Foundation, the Cap and Gown Project, and KTECH.
