Companies from General Electric Co. to yogurt producer Chobaniare adding U.S. workers, accelerating a rebound in hiring, as chiefexecutive officers prepare for greater demand in a strengtheningeconomic recovery.

Boeing Co. is bringing in more than 100 union machinists a weekfor a 60 percent boost in output by 2014. Nissan Motor Co. willexpand in Tennessee with 1,000 people making lithium-ion batteries.And a GE executive was at a Kentucky appliance plant before dawnthis month to greet some of 500 new employees.

“The next few years are going to be a different picture thanwhat we saw in the last few,” said Hamdi Ulukaya, CEO and founderof South Edmeston, New York-based Chobani, which is building a300-worker plant in Twin Falls, Idaho. “To get ready for this, weneed to have our manufacturing capacity in place.”

The hiring reflects optimism among CEOs that the economy willcontinue to strengthen and more workers will be needed to meetdemand. It may signal an end to a lockdown on job growth followingthe financial crisis that lingered even after the recession endedin June 2009, with economists estimating more new jobs created thisyear than any time since 2006.

Manufacturing, whether for GE refrigerators or Greenbrier Cos.rail cars, is a bright spot in a labor market still so weak thatDecember's unemployment rate of 8.5 percent was the lowest in threeyears. U.S. factory payrolls expanded by 225,000 jobs in 2011, morethan double the total from a year earlier.

“The ground seems to be set for a pretty decent near-termoutlook for manufacturing,” said Stephen Stanley, chief economistfor Pierpont Securities in Stamford, Connecticut. “There's stillroom for job growth there if demand continues to pick up.”

That's a possibility at the U.S. unit of Germany's HartingDeutschland GmbH, a maker of industrial connectors. CEO Rolf Meyersaid his business probably will hire 20 more people in 2012, afterdoubling the workforce to 120 since the recession.

“We have a couple of large orders that we're negotiating on inthe broadcast and medical industries, and these will likely hit inthe next five or six months,” said Meyer, who supplies customerssuch as GE, Siemens AG and Alstom SA from operations based inElgin, Illinois.

Investors have taken note: The Standard & Poor's 500Industrials Index gained 23 percent through yesterday since thestart of the fourth quarter, compared with a 15 percent advance forthe broader S&P 500.

Wage Cut

GE, based in Fairfield, Connecticut, will meet higher demand formore energy-efficient appliances with new production of waterheaters and refrigerators in Louisville, Kentucky. A unionagreement in 2010 to cut hourly starting salaries to $13 and toincrease efficiency helped bring back work to the U.S. from Chinaand Mexico.

“Throughout the first quarter, we'll be bringing people in,”said Dirk Bowman, general manager of manufacturing for GE'sappliance unit who welcomed some new workers at a factory inLouisville, Kentucky, to clapping and cheering at 6 a.m. one daythis month. “It feels great.”

The new U.S. workers at Nissan, Japan's second-largest carmaker,will produce batteries for the electric Leaf compact built nearbyin Smyrna, Tennessee. Chrysler Group LLC, the U.S. automakermajority-owned by Fiat SpA, will add a third shift at it Detroitplant that makes the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Dodge Durangosport-utility vehicles, creating 1,100 jobs.

Boeing, responding to airlines clamoring for more fuel-efficient jets, added 10,000 jobs last year as hiring in theChicago-based planemaker's commercial aircraft unit made up forshrinking defense employment.

New employees for Boeing's Seattle-area plants are piling intoorientation sessions held by the planemaker each Friday, said TommyWilson, a Machinists union official. The six-hour meetings, in anauditorium near Boeing Field, focus on policies from badge usage toparking, benefits and avoiding personal use of Internet access.

“They've been hiring like crazy,” said Connie Kelliher, a unionspokeswoman in Seattle. “We've long since exhausted the people onlayoffs and they've been new hires.”

Production increases at the world's largest aerospace companyare rippling out to suppliers such as Spirit AeroSystems HoldingsInc. and Rockwell Collins Inc. Wichita, Kansas-based Spirit boostedits workforce by 1,000 to 15,000 last year and will hire at thesame pace in 2012, said Ken Evans, a spokesman.

The U.S. may add 1.7 million jobs this year, the fastest pacesince 2006, based on economists' estimates compiled by Blue ChipEconomic Indicators.

Risks to U.S.

Faster payroll growth should spur a 2.3 percent expansion in theU.S. economy in 2012, according to the median estimate of 84economists compiled by Bloomberg. Europe is projected to contractby 0.2 percent and China's economy is forecast to cool to 8.5percent growth from 9.2 percent in 2011.

The risk to the U.S. is that Europe's sovereign-debt crisis mayworsen or that China's slowdown becomes more abrupt, said Stanley,the Pierpont Securities economist.

“The economy is not so strong that it's invincible to shocks,”Stanley said.

Metlife Inc., the largest U.S. life insurer, said this week itwill shut its mortgage-origination business, eliminating most ofthe 4,300 employees. Archer Daniels Midland Co., the world'slargest grain processor, plans to cut 1,000 jobs to trim costs.

Kurt Rankin, an economist at PNC Financial Services Group Inc.in Pittsburgh, expects job growth this year to average 135,000 amonth, a pace at which it would take years for the economy to makeup for the 8.7 million positions lost in 2008 and 2009.

“It would be a stretch to say we would be able to recoverto pre-recession levels by anywhere before the middle of thedecade,” said Rankin, who predicts the unemployment rate will endthis year at 8.2 percent or 8.3 percent.

Hiring began to pick up in mid-2011 among employers seekingengineering and technology-related workers, said Jesse Harriott,senior vice president and chief knowledge officer at MonsterWorldwide Inc., the world's largest online recruiter.

Some industries have remained mostly unscathed by the recession,including oil and gas, technology and precious metals. Gold minersare struggling to find qualified applicants, said Rob McEwen, CEOof U.S. Gold Corp. in Lakewood, Colorado. The labor pool dwindledin the 1980s and 1990s as weak metals markets deterred manywould-be employees from mining schools, he said.

'Like Bacteria'

“You're seeing very strong demand for engineers and geologists,”McEwen said.

Martin Holdrich, senior economist at Woods & Poole EconomicsInc. in Washington, said the factory-hiring rebound suggests arecovery in manufacturing employment toward pre- recession levelsof 14 million jobs at the end of 2006, from fewer than 12 millionlast year. Concerns that those losses would all be permanent wereoverstated, he said.

“Manufacturing is a lot like bacteria,” Holdrich said. “As longas you don't kill them all, they'll flourish again when theconditions are right.”

Bloomberg News

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