FCA US has a lot more employees now (corrected)

Fiat leadership has dramatically increased the number of hourly workers at the former Chrysler, according to a company report updated today.

FCA updated a count of the hourly and salaried UAW employees at year end from 2009 (the first year Fiat was involved) through to 2018 (since year-end 2019 figures won’t be available at least until the end of 2019). When this story was first posted, it did not stipulate that both salaried and hourly figures below are UAW (union) workers only. These figures are only for employees within the United States. 

Hourly employment has increased nearly every year (with the exception of 2016), more than doubling from 21,719 in 2009 to 44,056 in 2018.

The company hired on a lot of new people, including engineers, almost as soon as Sergio Marchionne was in charge, but many of these people are not UAW members. Even excluding non-union people, hiring increased each year until 2014. At the end of last year, FCA US had 3,151 UAW salaried people—around 450 more than at the end of 2009.

Along with other vehicles on display, Chrysler employees were able to check out farm and construction equipment from Fiat Group’s Case New Holland subsidiary.

Part of the reason for that boost in hourly employment was FCA’s greater use of in-house manufacturing. Rather than having lowest-bid providers supply cams, cranks, engine blocks, and such, Fiat chose to bring manufacturing back into the United States (or their own plants in Mexico).

These numbers, as one might expect, pale in comparison to pre-Daimler figures; but it’s hard to compare, because automation has progressed steadily throughout that time.

FCA US is in the midst of negotiating with the United Auto Workers, following a fairly generous contract agreement with General Motors.