GE’s Advanced Manufacturing and Software Technology Center (AMSTC) in Van Buren Township, Michigan, is adding 300 new high value IT and research jobs, the company announced today. GE’s total job commitment to Michigan now stands at 1,400 jobs at the center and 1,600 across the state.
GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt said this morning in a Detroit Free Press column that the choice to expand in Michigan “was an easy one.” He said that GE “saw a community that valued work and understood the importance of advanced manufacturing to our future.” Immelt wrote that “in an economy that increasingly requires highly trained and highly skilled workers, we saw a state that was home to world-class universities and hard-working, dedicated professionals with deep knowledge in new technology. Ultimately, in Michigan we saw not only a state that needed jobs but also a partner that was resilient and ready for growth.”
Building 45 is home to AMSTC’s advanced manufacturing technology development center where GE researchers work on “disruptive manufacturing technologies” involving hi-tech coatings and composite materials, and prepare them for industrial production.
GE’s Michigan push goes beyond jobs. The company will also grow by a quarter its summer internships and co-op programs for college students at AMSTC and several GE Aviation locations in Michigan. It’s also hiring about 110 students for summer assignments in engineering, IT, finance and supply chain operations.
GE has had a strong presence in Michigan. Some 3,000 employees and 4,000 retirees live in Van Buren Township, Muskegon, Kentwood, Livonia, Grand Rapids, St. Joseph, and Southfield. GE employment will reach about 3,800 in the next few years.
Immelt said in his column that Michigan was “making an undeniable comeback, and providing a recovery blueprint for other manufacturing communities.”
“Now is the time to make the “Michigan Miracle” the Michigan model that the rest of the country follows,” Immelt said.
