“And with a new, diverse workforce that includes more women in production roles, the impact of an inclusive culture is immediately noticeable the moment you step inside the plant,” Bell said.
GM Canada received more than 13,000 resumes for the available jobs. Over three months last spring, GM put about 5,000 applicants through door building.
For the time being, Oshawa is the only plant in GM’s portfolio to exclusively produce Chevrolet — and not GMC-badged — pickups. It will also be the automaker’s only truck plant capable of building both heavy- and light-duty trucks. For now, the factory is only producing Silverado HD.
The automaker builds pickups at three other dedicated factories in North America. In pre-pandemic 2019, GM facilities in Flint, Mich., and Fort Wayne, Ind., produced about 185,000 and 300,000 pickups, respectively, while its plant in Silao, Mexico, built 365,000, according to the Automotive News Research & Data Center.
