Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE Manufacturing and the head of President Obama’s jobs council, announced on Monday that General Electric Co. plans to hire 5,000 veterans over the next five years and invest $580 million to expand its aviation business. He was speaking at a jobs conference in Washington, D.C., sponsored by General Electric.
General Electric said Monday that its “Hiring Our Heroes” partnership will help match veterans with jobs. The company will also team with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to sponsor 400 veterans’ job fairs this year. In addition, its aviation unit will add more than 400 new manufacturing jobs and open three new plants in Mississippi, Alabama, and Ohio next year. GE said that the plants are part of its efforts to create or rebuild 16 facilities and more than 12,000 new jobs. The company started production on its first new appliance line in more than 50 years last week at Appliance Park in Louisville, Kentucky.
GE CEO Immelt said the largest U.S. conglomerate’s thinking “evolved” on the value of manufacturing inside the United States versus outside it.
“We’re basically moving our appliance manufacturing back from Mexico and China to basically Louisville (Kentucky),” … “When we looked at it on a cost basis, our labor is still higher, but it’s closer than it’s been in the past. And both materials and distribution are less expensive in the United States than imported. So we see the opportunity to bring jobs — certain jobs, not every job — back. And we think this is going to take place in areas like software as well.”
At the conference, Jim McNerney, chief executive of plane manufacturer Boeing also had some statements to make. “We, lemming-like, over the last 15 years extended our supply chains a little too far globally in the name of low cost. We lost control in some cases over quality and service when we did that, we underestimated in some cases the value of our workers back here.”
As a result of its offshoring efforts, Boeing ran into extensive delays delivering its 787 Dreamliner aircraft. Many jobs and much of the manufacturing responsibility were handed to foreign suppliers, leaving the launch of the fuel-efficient aircraft some three years behind schedule.
“You are going to see more (manufacturing) come back to the United States, and that’s in part for business reasons and in part because we want to be good citizens,” McNerney said, apparently without any trace of self-awareness.
My my my, how the worm turns.
Source: Times Union
