GM to invest $1 billion in U.S. manufacturing

Detroit-based General Motors has announced it will invest an additional $1 billion in U.S. manufacturing operations. These investments follow $2.9 billion announced in 2016 and more than $21 billion GM has invested in its U.S. operations since 2009.

The new investments cover multiple new vehicle, advanced technology, and component projects. A combination of 1,500 new and retained jobs are tied to the new investments.

The company also announced it will begin work on insourcing axle production for its next-generation full-size pickup trucks, including work previously done in Mexico, to operations in Michigan, creating 450 U.S. jobs.

The automaker’s announcement is part of the company’s increased focus on overall efficiency over the last four years. With a strategy to streamline and simplify its operations and grow its business, the company has created 25,000 jobs in the U.S.—about 19,000 engineering, IT, and professional jobs and 6,000 hourly manufacturing jobs—and added nearly $3 billion in annual wages and benefits to the U.S. economy over that period. At the same time, the firm eliminated more than 15,000 positions outside the U.S., bringing most of those jobs to America. During that period, the company moved from 90 percent of its IT work being outsourced to an insourced U.S.-based model.

The automaker also has been facilitating its supplier base to do the same, executing a strategy to create supplier parks adjacent to its U.S. manufacturing sites.