Profits at big U.S. companies broke records last year, and so did pay for CEOs. The head of a typical public company made $9.CHICAGO – Toyota says it will expand its factory in Princeton, Ind., and add 400 jobs so it can build more Highlander SUVs.
The hiring and expansion will come next year.
Toyota says it will invest $400 million in the factory to build 50,000 more Highlanders a year. The plant built more than 101,000 Highlanders last year. The company says it plans to stop making Highlanders in Japan and move that production to Indiana.
The Princeton plant in southern Indiana now employs nearly 4,000 who make Sienna minivans and the Highlander and Sequoia SUVs.
Toyota sold more than 101,000 Highlanders in the U.S. last year, up nearly 10 percent from 2010.
Ball State University economist Michael Hicks says Toyota’s plan to shift production of its Highlander hybrid from Japan to Indiana is a good sign for the Hoosier economy.
“Toyota’s shifting of employment from Japan to Princeton could be caused by the big increase in U.S. demand for its vehicles in the past two years, coupled with a very favorable manufacturing environment in the state,” said Hicks, director of Ball State’s Center for Business and Economic Research.
“Toyota isn’t coming to Indiana because of cheap labor, but probably because of a very productive facility, a robust local supply chain and a state economy that ensures long-term certainty over the direction of taxation,” the economist at Ball State said.
