Future looks bright for our Yorozu plant

By JAMES CLARK

Nissan is revving up production of the Altima, which is the company’s flagship vehicle.

Nissan announced on Monday that it is eliminating one truck and one SUV manufacturing shift at its Canton, Miss., plant and revving up production on its hot-selling Altima.
While that might not seem like such great news at first glance, it is when you consider our local Yorozu plant does a tremendous amount of work making parts for the Altima and Maxima.
‘This facility will have a dramatic increase in volume starting Sept. 3,’ said Yorozu president Jack Phillips. ‘In a tough time, it will boost our sales and that’s good. It will also lead to running weekends and some overtime and it’s been a while since we’ve had overtime.’
Jack says under the current forecast he doesn’t think Yorozu will need to hire more employees, although he said a weekend crew could be possible. Right now, Yorozu is holding steady with 850 employees.
In addition to the good news about increased Altima production, Yorozu has also landed some work from Toyota for its Camry and Avalon vehicles.
‘We’re going to continue to pursue more business from Toyota,’ said Jack. ‘Even though this is a bad business environment in general, we’ve been able to get some things that will help out.’
With soaring prices, stagnant wages and a number of consumers already buried under a mountain of debt, it’s a tough time for almost all businesses. This is especially true with the car industry, which is having to slam the brakes on almost all of its big-car production in favor of more fuel-efficient models.
It’s great to see our Yorozu plant is doing what it can to keep plunging along to keep workers on the payroll.