Volvo Cars’ Torslanda plant started a third shift today, which has created approximately 1,500 new jobs in the company’s Western Swedish home region.
The additional night shift was needed especially for the all-new Volvo XC90 seven-seater SUV, for which the company has already received around 30,000 pre-orders. Thanks to an increase in line speed at the Torslanda plant, Volvo has upgraded its need for added staff from 1,300 to nearly 1,500 new recruitments.
Furthermore, the expansion is expected to generate an even higher number of new jobs at suppliers and other businesses in Gothenburg and Western Sweden.
With this latest expansion, Volvo Cars now has approximately 17,300 employees in Sweden, of which 13,500 in Gothenburg, where 4,800 people work in the Torslanda plant.
“I am very pleased by the extraordinary positive reception of our new XC90 model and that we can welcome 1,500 new employees to the Torslanda plant to produce this new car”, says President and CEO Håkan Samuelsson. “This is just the start – we will launch a whole range of new cars in the coming four years, many of which will be produced here in Torslanda,” he added.
“Responsible” for the production increase is the new Volvo XC90, of which the automaker expects to produce around 50,000 units in 2015. The majority of the XC90 production will be exported, with the US and China being two of the key markets.
The new Volvo XC90 is the first model based on Volvo’s new Scalable Product Architecture (SPA), which will also underpin a series of upcoming Volvo models to be built in Torslanda. Following the expansion, the plant has an annual capacity of 300,000 cars. Currently the Volvo S60, S80, V60, V70, XC70 and XC90 are built at the site.
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