Airbus is finding that it does not need to look far beyond Mobile to staff its new A320 final assembly line, according to the company’s local human resources director, who told a gathering of regional workforce and industry leaders that local recruitment has outperformed early expectations.
Speaking to about two dozen participants at a recent quarterly meeting of the Aviation and Aerospace Advisory Council, Jennifer Ogle said Airbus initially assumed it would need to bring in expatriate workers to fill many of the more technical roles tied to aircraft production and testing. Instead, she said, the local applicant pool has proven far stronger than anticipated, allowing the company to fill specialized positions, including test pilots and ground- and flight-test engineers, with candidates from the Mobile area.
Ogle told the council that being able to find that talent locally represents both a significant cost savings for the company and proof that the skilled workforce needed to support advanced aircraft manufacturing already exists in the region. The advisory council itself is a joint effort of the Southwest Alabama Workforce Development Council and Enterprise State Community College, created to identify skills gaps and better align training programs with the needs of the region’s growing aviation and aerospace sector. The meeting was held at the Alabama Aviation Center, a longtime satellite facility of Enterprise State Community College in Mobile.
Representatives from other key aviation employers in the area, including VT Mobile Aerospace Engineering, Star Aviation, Aero Star and Flight Training of Mobile, also took part in the meeting, discussing industry hiring demand alongside workforce development partners such as the Alabama Technology Network and the Alabama Industrial Development Training program.
As of the most recent count, Ogle said Airbus had hired more than 140 employees for its roughly $600 million Mobile assembly facility, which was on track to come online later that year, deliver its first Mobile-built aircraft in 2016, and eventually employ about 1,000 people once it reaches full production of 40 to 50 aircraft annually by 2018. The company’s most recent orientation session drew more than 100 candidates for structural, electrical and cabin assembly positions, with new postings going up regularly across a range of skill levels.
Ogle acknowledged that application volume has settled since the earliest hiring rounds, when a single opening could draw thousands of applicants, but said the quality of candidates coming through the pipeline has remained strong. She said prospective applicants should expect to see more production positions posted in the coming months as the assembly line ramps toward full operation, offering continued opportunity for Mobile-area workers to join one of the region’s highest-profile manufacturing projects.