Ford Motor plans to add 800 more white-collar workers by the end of 2013 after already signing on 2,200 so far this year. It's the latest indication that while U.S. employers, on the whole, remain reluctant to put out the help-wanted sign, the auto industry is struggling to find enough bodies to keep up with the strong surge in domestic sales.
Most of the 3,000 new white-collar jobs Ford now plans to fill this year will be focused on engineering, information technology, product development and manufacturing, primarily in southeastern Michigan. But it is also moving to find thousands of additional hourly workers to keep its assembly lines rolling. And it's not alone.
Though many analysts were cautious about forecasting 2013 sales, most now agree that the industry likely will move something up to 1 million more cars, trucks and crossovers than last year's 14.5 million.
Ford is running ahead of the industry average, with a year-over-year gain of 13 percent for the first five months of 2013. But overall sales are up a still impressive 8.2 percent for the year-to-date and, if anything, some makers—including domestics Ford, General Motors and Chrysler as well as such foreign-owned brands as Hyundai and Kia—say they are being held back by a lack of production capacity.