Ford Motor Company of Canada says it’s adding more than 1,000 hourly jobs at its Oakville assembly plant in preparation for the launch of its 2015 Ford Edge crossover utility vehicle.

The mass hiring is the first bit of good news in a long time for Ontario’s beleaguered manufacturing sector, which has seen the exit of such major employers as Caterpillar and Heinz.

“It’s a very exciting day for the Ford of Canada team,” Ford of Canada president and chief executive officer Dianne Craig said in an exclusive telephone interview late Tuesday. “It was just over a year ago we had the big announcement in Oakville that we’re investing $700 million into this advanced global manufacturing plant to serve 100 markets around the globe.”

The new jobs will bring total employment at the plant by year-end to more than 4,000, its highest level since 2004 when Ford closed its Oakville truck plant.

“It’s great news for us. Absolutely. It’s more than we were expecting,” said Bob Scott, plant chair for Unifor Local 707 which represents 3,300 people at the plant.

Auto manufacturing was hit particularly hard during the financial crisis and Great Recession of 2008/2009, as U.S. consumers stopped buying big ticket items such as cars.

Oakville investment

Canadian motor vehicle manufacturers lost 11,900 jobs and had regained just 3,300 by May 2014, according to a report by economists at the Royal Bank of Canada.

Unifor represents 21,000 Canadian auto industry workers, including 4,500 at Ford, which also operates an engine plant in Windsor.

Ford announced the Oakville investment in September, 2013, saying it had won a hard fought internal company competition to be designated the “global platform” for the next generation Ford Edge.

The plant will be the sole manufacturer of the vehicle, which will be exported to nearly 100 countries.

“When I arrived here three years ago, there were a lot of questions about whether Canada could compete. I think we proved that we could,” Craig said.

Craig credited both the new labour agreement and the contributions of the federal and Ontario governments, which provided $142 million of the total $700 million investment.

“It’s definitely big news for Ford. It’s big news for Ontario. It’s big news for our industry. It’s great for manufacturing in Ontario. Everybody came together to make this happen. Both Ontario and the federal government were a big part of making this happen. And our labour force as well,” she said.

Unifor agreed in the last round of negotiations with the Detroit Three automakers to lower wages and benefits for new hires.

New hires will start $20 an hour, instead of $24, and take 10 years, instead of six, to reach the top wage, which was $34.

They'll also receive a hybrid pension plan combining some defined benefits with defined contributions.

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At the time, Ford said the new deal would secure the existing 2,800 jobs at its Oakville plant.

Reaping the benefits of U.S. economy

Canadian manufacturers are starting to reap the benefits of a recovering U.S. economy and lower Canadian dollar, said Jayson Myers, president and chief executive of Canadian Manufactures and Exporters.

“We just completed a survey of our members. The bottom line is a majority are optimistic not only that sales are going to pick up but that they’re going to be hiring more people as well,” Myers said.

Still, the long-term future of the auto industry, Ontario’s flagship manufacturing segment, remains in doubt, industry observers say.

Even though 80 per cent of Canadian auto production goes to the U.S., where sales have been soaring, most new auto industry investment has been going to the southern U.S. and Mexico.

Canada’s share of North American auto production has declined to 14 per cent from 17 per cent in 2010, according to Wards Auto, an industry publication.

That long-term trend isn’t expected to reverse, Wards Auto analyst Haig Stoddard said in a telephone interview.

Even with a lower Canadian dollar, modern industrialized countries like Canada aren’t likely to see a return to traditional low-skilled, high-paying factory jobs, according to a report by the Mowat Centre at the University of Toronto earlier this year. The future will be in advanced manufacturing which relies on fewer workers and more high technology, the report said.

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