After COVID and other delays, Doosan Bobcat has completed a major expansion of its Litchfield, Minn., plant and is now looking to hire 160 additional workers.
Construction of the $26 million addition, which tripled the size of the facility, began in 2019 and was scheduled to be completed in September.
But with COVID and supply disruptions, the 200,000-square-foot plant officially opens this month. Several assembly lines are expected to be relocated there soon from the company's other factories in North Dakota, officials said.
Officials said tripling the size of the plant about 60 miles west of the Twin Cities was badly needed as the original building was "bursting at the seams," the company said. Demand for Doosan Bobcat's construction equipment, which skyrocketed before the pandemic, began rising again late last year.
Mike Ballweber, president of Doosan Bobcat North America, said home and business owners turned to the company for its building, remodeling and landscaping construction equipment while they waited for COVID-19's grip to pass.
The Litchfield plant makes buckets, augers, snowplows and other attachments for Bobcat's skid-steer loaders, track loaders and excavators.
The expanded factory has 140 workers, but needs another 110 before the end of this year, Ballweber said. The company plans to hire an additional 50 employees over the next three years, bringing total employment there to 300.
Finding workers to work in manufacturing could be challenging. Ballweber said some people who lost service jobs during the pandemic may prefer their unemployment compensation to taking a factory job. Doosan Bobcat needs operators to run jigsaws, presses, lasers and welding equipment and will work with the state and trade schools in the St. Cloud area to spread word of its hiring, he said.
