Ford adding 450 jobs on Southeast Side

Ford said Monday it will hire 450 workers on the city’s Southeast Side as it expands production of hybrid vehicles and its Police Interceptor SUV.

The production will start during the fourth quarter but the hiring will start next week, said Joe Hinrichs, Ford’s president for automotive. He said the production will take place at what the company calls its modification center at 12359 S. Burley Ave., a few blocks from its main assembly plant, 12600 S. Torrence Ave.

Hinrichs said Ford will use the facility, spending $50 million on improvements, to build the Ford Explorer hybrid, the Lincoln Aviator Grand Touring plug-in hybrid and the Police Interceptor SUV hybrid and standard models.

He said the modification center had been used before to make police vehicles, so it has a production line set up. “This is a good creative use of our manufacturing space that will allow us to make more units,” he said.

Hinrichs declined to offer projected production numbers. “It’s a great product we have and there is very strong demand,” he said.

Honoring its contract with the United Auto Workers, the company will move 450 workers from temporary status to full time. Hinrichs said they will be replaced by another 450 temporary workers.

The hiring follows Ford’s addition of 500 jobs earlier this year that accompanied a $1 billion modernization at its Torrence Avenue manufacturing complex and its stamping plant in Chicago Heights.

A Ford spokeswoman said that with the new hires, the Chicago assembly operations will have a total of 5,200 hourly employees.

Hinrichs said that for the hybrids, the body units will be painted at the Torrence plant, then sent to the Burley location for assembly. They will then come back to Torrence for final testing, he said.