After a pretty depressing winter in London in terms of employment, the news of the Toyota plant in Woodstock hiring 400 new workers is music to our ears.  If you haven’t heard, Toyota announced that they will be increasing production of the RAV4 at the Woodstock plant by 50,000 vehicles per year, which translates into the 400 new jobs announced.  For a region struggling with high unemployment, especially in the manufacturing sector, this is good news.

As if that wasn’t enough, there’s also talk that Toyota may be shopping around for manufacturing facilities for some of their Japanese made vehicles, due in part to the high value of the Yen.  This could see even more jobs moved to Southwestern Ontario, not only for Toyota, but for other Japanese automakers like Honda, which already has manufacturing facilities in Ontario.

Does this signal a comeback for automotive and manufacturing jobs in Southwestern Ontario?

I’m not totally convinced.

The automotive industry can be somewhat fickle today.  It’s wonderful that Cami in Ingersoll, Toyota in Woodstock & Cambridge and Ford, in nearby Oakville are currently producing vehicles that everyone wants; Small to Mid-Size SUV/CUV type vehicles.  They’re hot right now which is great for our area since we produce a few of them.

But what happens when there’s a platform change, some re-tooling at area plants and the new vehicle ends up being a bust?  Look at Ford in Talbotville.  Had they been building Ford Edge’s, they would still be there, but unfortunately they were building a vehicle that no one except Police departments wanted.  It’s the nature of the automotive business, which moves along at a much faster pace than it once did.  In the past, new models took 5-7 years of planning and design before they hit production and people kept their cars for longer periods of time.  Now we have a fairly short turnaround time on new vehicles from concept to production and people are always trading in cars for the newest, hottest, or most economical model.

While the news of extra production jobs is good news, reality is that these still may not be the “job for life” type of jobs that the previous generation had.  I’m not an economics expert of or an automotive industry analyst, but I don’t think it takes a genius to see the new reality.  I could be a pessimist, but I just don’t see high paying jobs in manufacturing being a sustainable thing for this area.

I could be wrong, and I certainly hope that I am for the sake of the local economy and jobs in this area.