Volvo Trucks’ New River Valley plant adds more jobs

Rising demand has fueled more jobs at Volvo Trucks’ Dublin plant. The company has added 200 jobs at the manufacturing facility in recent months.

“There’s been a strong pickup in demand for the fuel efficiency that our products deliver,” says Brandon Borgna, media relations manager for Volvo Trucks.

The new jobs involve various assembly positions, he says. With the new jobs, the Dublin plant now employs more than 2,500 workers.

Borgna could not share the wages paid by new jobs but says pay would be very competitive.

Potential employees at the plant go through WorkKeys testing through New River Community College. The program helps employers identify the skills needed for workers to be successful on the job. It also helps businesses identify additional workforce training needs. Once workers arrive at the plant, they receive one week of classroom training before beginning on the-job-training the next week.

The 1.6 million-square-foot plant is fully-integrated, says Lars Blomberg, its vice president and general manager. The truck cabs are welded and painted at the facility, and chassis also are assembled there. In Volvo Trucks’ European plants, the cab and chassis facilities are separate, he says. Trucks built at the Dublin plant are sold in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Besides adding jobs, Volvo Trucks also is constructing a 1.1-mile “customer-experience” track, and company officials hope to hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony for it in August. Workers from the plant are building the track with Volvo construction equipment. An intern from New River Community College helped design the track. It will be used to showcase Volvo’s truck lineup for customers visiting the plant.

Volvo Trucks is part of Volvo AB, a Swedish company which reported sales of $41.5 billion last year and $45 billion in 2012. Volvo AB makes trucks, buses, construction equipment and marine and industrial engines.
Ford Motor Co.  bought the Volvo Car division in 1999. Volvo Car is now owned by a Chinese company, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co.