5,900 people are directly employed by the industry in West Virginia, working as production workers, engineers, designers, sales and marketing employees, and other corporate staff. Including spin-off employment, a total of 26,800 West Virginians have jobs dependent on the industry. All in all, this translates to $780 million in wages and benefits in the state, even though West Virginia’s average manufacturing wages are 69% of the U.S. average—excellent news for investors.
But the importance of the automotive industry in West Virginia doesn’t rely solely on quantity—it’s about quality too. The Harbour Report North America 2006 named Toyota’s West Virginia power-train production plant “the benchmark” for four-cylinder engine production with a productivity rating of 2.4 hours per engine. The report measures assembly, stamping and power-train productivity performances plant-by-plant, and company-by-company for North American automotive manufacturers. Toyota’s West Virginia plant in Buffalo performed better than 15 other plants in the United States, some much larger.
Because of our central location in the automotive manufacturing market, our hard-working and dedicated employees, and our overall quality of life, West Virginia is also able to constantly attract new investment from major international firms. In November 2002, SOGEFI, a $1 billion Italian automotive parts supplier with 60 locations worldwide, chose West Virginia for its new US production facility. They will produce automotive suspension parts for Ford in an investment that will create 148 jobs and $27 million for Wayne County. According to the company’s web site (www.sogefi.it), the choice of West Virginia for SOGEFI’s first American plant was based on “…favorable socioeconomic, environmental, and logistic conditions of this particular state which also offered SOGEFI substantial economic and fiscal incentives.”