Chrysler announced they will be hiring 1,250 new employees and spend $374 million to improved transmission plants in central Indiana according to The Detroit Free Press.
"Our investments in Kokomo and Tipton are a tribute to the character of the men and women of Chrysler who survived a near-fatal experience and have embraced the challenge of building an enterprise that is able to compete with the best in the world," Chrysler and Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne said in a press statement.
The investment requires $212 million to upgrade two important plants in Kokomo and 162 million for equipment and to purchase a plant in Tipton, Indiana.
Chrysler is investing all this money to build more nine-speed transmissions for the the new Jeep Cherokee which goes on sales later this year, the Dodge Dart and a redesigned Chrysler 200 which will launch in 2014.
Chrysler anticipates hiring over 850 workers in the new Tipton factory and 400 new workers at its casting and transmission plants in Kokomo.
By 2014, the company is planning on creating 7,300 new jobs in the area, which is located around an hour away from Indianapolis. Since 2010, Chrysler has hired 1,500 workers at its three transmission plants. Chrysler has invested $1.6 billion at its plants during that time period as well.
Kristin Dziczek, director of the labor and industry group at the Center for Automotive Research stated it's unusual for one automotive company to place all of its production capacity for one component in a single location.
"It is unusual that they put all of their eggs in one basket," Price said to the Detroit Free Press. They could have put it somewhere else. That shows the confidence they had in this workforce."
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