F-Series has been the best-selling truck in America for 36 consecutive years, the best-selling vehicle in America for 31 consecutive years.
Ford Motor is adding more than 2,000 jobs at its Kansas City Assembly Plant in Missouri to meet recovering demand for the Ford F-150 and planned production of a revised Ford Transit. It is a sad fact oft noted during the Obama Administration’s mostly jobless recovery that only half of the jobs will be new hires. As to the created jobs, they will come at an hourly rate that adjusted for inflation is less then Henry Ford’s $5 a day Model T wage a century ago. While U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill with troops defending more than 130 countries, little is being done to defend jobs in the homeland as the latest unemployment numbers show.
Since the second half of last year, Ford has been trying to increase capacity after it cut plants and jobs too deeply in response to the Great Recession that took hold under the Bush Administration, which is still hurting U.S. wealth, job creation and tax collections. Now, Ford appears to have the ability to cope with a recovering U.S. auto market that is running well above sales of 15 million light vehicles this year. (See Chrysler, Ford, GM Post Double Digit April Sales Gains0
Ford F-Series sales up 24% in April at 59,000, and 19% year to date at 228,000. The full-size truck segment is growing three times faster than industry average and is fastest-growing segment this year, boosting Profit at not only Ford, but GM and Chrysler as well.
Ford is adding 900 jobs and a third crew in Q3 to build F-150. Ford also is adding another 1,100 jobs starting in the fourth quarter to prepare for the introduction of the all-new Ford Transit full-size van in 2014.
Kansas City Assembly Plant produces the Ford F-150 Regular, Super and Crew Cab and now has 2,450 hourly workers working two shifts. Ford said it is investing $1.1 billion to retool and expand the facility for production of both the F-150 and Transit, including a 437,000 sq.-ft. stamping facility and a 78,000 sq.-ft. paint shop.
