WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - Aircraft parts maker Spirit AeroSystems announced Wednesday it plans to hire an additional 1,400 people next year at its Wichita plant.
Spirit Chief Executive Officer Tom Gentile said in a news conference that the new hiring will come on top of the 1,000 new jobs the company said last year it planned to add as part of a $1 billion expansion at its Wichita facility. The company reached that job goal within months, he said.
Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer called the latest announcement “the biggest news in this state in a long time.”
The Wichita Eagle reported the new jobs will bring the number of employees at the company’s headquarters in Wichita from 11,000 on the day of the December 2017 expansion announcement to 13,400 employees by the end of 2019, Gentile said.
Its website says the company has more than 15,000 employees worldwide.
Spirit AeroSystems, Wichita’s largest employer, revealed plans in May for a 150,000-square-foot building that will be part of the $1 billion expansion.
Boeing sold its Wichita and Oklahoma operations in 2005 in a move that spun off the company now known as Spirit AeroSystems. It now builds aircraft parts for multiple commercial and defense customers, including Boeing 373 fuselages.
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