CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – Representatives from Hankook Tire were guests of the Clarksville Civitan Club, Wednesday, August 12 at their weekly meeting. Communications Manager, Brenda Pfeiffer and Human Resource Manager, Ken Mangold, presented an update on the company’s Clarksville project.
Peiffer said Hankook is a global corporation with 21,000 employees and manufacturing facilities in China, Korea, Indonesia and Hungary, currently producing 90 million tires worldwide. Clarksville will be the company’s eighth plant and is scheduled to open in 2016, employing over 1,000 people.
Right now there are about 30 local employees housed in a temporary facility at the old Hemlock Semiconductor site. Mangold said the company plans to start hiring hourly employees sometime this December with those people going over to Hungary for specific training.
“We’ll start in the February, March time frame next year for the rest of the hourly groups, looking at maybe 100 to 150 a month from that point. We will also have approximately 150 salaried folks that will be brought on by the end of 2016,” said Mangold.
Personnel are being hired for administration, engineering, purchasing, materials, production, and maintenance positions. Mangold encouraged people to go to www.jobs4tn.gov to find out more. Potential growth for the company could increase employment to 2,500-3,000 by 2021 or 2022.
As far as wages, Mangold said the company has not yet decided on a number. There is going to be a wage review over the next few months to see what Clarksville is looking at as far as average wages and it may be a little higher than that.
The Hankook plant is now in the beginning stages of construction. An administration building should be finished in April or May of next year with work on the main facility completed in July or August of 2016. Mangold added that the first production of saleable tires should be ready in the fourth quarter of 2016.
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