The Scout electric vehicle plant in the Midlands will hire 4K workers. Where will they come from?
It takes an army to relaunch an iconic Americana automotive brand.
An army of about 4,000, as it turns out.
That’s how many employees Scout Motors, which is backed by Volkswagen, says it will hire for its recently announced $2 billion electric vehicle plant in Blythewood. Scout, which essentially introduced the SUV to the U.S. market in the 1960s and was known for two decades for its rugged vehicles geared toward outdoor adventure, plans to make trucks and SUVs at the coming Columbia-area facility.
While Scout is making plans to have the plant operational by 2026 — aided in part by more than $1.2 billion in state incentives to get the plant up and running, plus local tax breaks from Richland County — it also will be tasked with procuring a workforce ready to build the high-tech electric vehicles.
Scout President and CEO Scott Keogh said during a Monday roundtable with S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster and others that he is confident the Midlands and South Carolina will be able to provide workers to make the technologically advanced vehicles the Volkswagen-affiliated company is planning to roll out.
Keogh said the labor prospects in South Carolina were perhaps the “most critical” piece of the puzzle in Scout choosing South Carolina and Richland County for its plant. The company evaluated more than 70 other sites for the project, the company president said.
“If you look at the talent, from the engineering that comes from the universities, obviously from the University of South Carolina and Clemson and Benedict College, the talent is there,” Keogh said. “Also, there is a history of automotive (in South Carolina). You have 75,000 automotive employees (across the state), the supply chain, the logistics. So the infrastructure is there, in place.”
Among South Carolina’s most prominent automakers are BMW, which for more than three decades has had facilities in the Upstate along the Interstate 85 corridor, and Volvo, which has facilities in Berkeley County in the Lowcountry.
The announcement that Scout will establish a plant in the Columbia area — and bring 4,000 new jobs with it — comes at a time the labor market remains tight in South Carolina. The statewide unemployment rate is low, at 3.3% according to the latest state Department of Employment and Workforce statistics, and it’s even lower in Richland County, at 2.9%. Unemployment rates are low in neighboring counties, as well, including 2.5% in Lexington, 2.6% in Newberry, 3% in Kershaw, 4% in Sumter and 4.4% in Fairfield.
Still, McMaster pointed to the talent in area colleges and universities — even touting the state’s technical college system as “the best in the whole world” — as being ready to help staff the project, and he insisted there will be labor availability for the EV automaker, particularly in the Midlands.
“There’s an untapped labor pool around the Midlands,” McMaster said. “It’s been tapped some around the Upstate and in the Lowcountry with BMW and Volvo and others. But people here are ready to go. I think Scout is going to be inundated with high-quality workers who want to come and work and be happy.
“This is the missing ingredient that is going to set a spark of prosperity here in the Midlands, that will of course transmit out statewide, as well.”
Opportunity of a lifetime
Midlands Technical College Provost Barrie Kirk said the college has had preliminary conversations with Scout and, while there are details to be worked out, Midlands Tech is looking forward to helping train students to be ready to work at the facility.
“We are thrilled to collaborate with Scout and help make sure they have the skilled workforce they need to hit the ground running,” Kirk told The State. “It is truly game-changing for our region. This is the employment opportunity, really, of a lifetime for thousands of our students and Midlands residents at the same time. And that’s what we do: We work to understand the needs of our area employers and match those needs with our students and skilled residents.”
According to the S.C. Department of Commerce, the more than $1.2 billion incentive package the state is offering the EV carmaker will include $25 million to build a training center publicly owned by Midlands Technical College to train South Carolinians for employment with Scout Motors.
Kirk noted the Scout electric vehicle project blends “the nostalgia piece with ingenuity,” a nod to the love many had for the original Scout vehicles that were produced between the 1960s and 1980s and their coming resurrection as cutting-edge electric SUVs and trucks.
“What we know is that many of the programs we already teach are so completely transferable to the skills that Scout is going to need,” Kirk said.
She also said that the ReadySC program within the state’s technical college system has long been a pipeline to help provide industry with workers.
Chad Hardaway is the deputy director of the University of South Carolina Office of Economic Engagement. He said that office has been working with key industries across South Carolina for the last several years to help create a more direct pipeline for engineers to get from the halls of USC to offices of specific companies, including IBM, Nephron, Siemens and others. He noted his office already has had discussions with Scout.
“We’ve actually been engaged with industry partners for the last four to five years doing exactly what we are going to be doing with Scout,” Hardaway said. “And that’s getting industry partners to come and tell us what their needs are. Everyone knows companies need engineers. But the real issue is not delivering them engineers. The real issue is delivering them engineers or students that can come in day one and do the work.”
As South Carolina continues to be a hub for automotive manufacturing and, increasingly, the electric vehicle side of that industry, Hardaway said its is imperative for schools to prep students for that workforce.
“Because of a number of factors, our state is becoming one of the most attractive places for manufacturing,” Hardaway said. “We are becoming to place to be. We are starting to land these (huge projects).”
The Department of Commerce said in a Monday afternoon statement that it feels strongly the Midlands will be fertile ground for recruiting workers for Scout.
“Nearly 51,000 people are enrolled in higher education in Richland County, and that number jumps to 65,600 when you add in surrounding counties such as Fairfield, Lexington, Newberry, Kershaw, Sumter and Calhoun,” the department’s statement said. “Also in Richland County, more than 3,000 people are enrolled in four-year engineering and two-year engineering tech programs, with 545 engineering degrees completed each year.”
The department also pointed to the state’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities and technical college system as potential talent pools for Scout, and noted Clemson has recently launched the nation’s first undergraduate bachelor of science program in automotive engineering.
Kirk said she felt confident that Scout would not have a problem filling the 4,000 jobs it is planning in Richland County.
“But more importantly, they feel confident, or they wouldn’t have located here,” the Midlands Tech provost said.
During Monday’s roundtable, Keogh nodded toward that confidence, saying the establishment of a $2 billion production plant is a move that is meant to stand the test of time.
“A plant is a massively strategic decision,” the Scout CEO said. “This is not some retail environment where you come and go and move. This is strategic. We have factories across the globe that have been there for 70, 80 years. This is a place you want to call home, a place you want to stay. And you need bedrock stability to deliver that.”
Keogh indicated that the bulk of Scout’s hiring in the Midlands will come around 2025 or 2026, as the company has said it plans to start producing vehicles at the Blythewood plant by the end of 2026.
Those interested in inquiring about a job at the forthcoming Richland County Scout facility can visit scoutmotors.sctechjobs.com for more information.
EV manufacturing ramps up
Scout will arrive in South Carolina during a period of population growth statewide. The state’s population swelled by 10.7% between 2010 and 2020, per census figures, with the population topping 5 million for the first time. The population grew another 1.4% between 2020 and 2021, according to a release last year from the State Department of Employment and Workforce.
The Scout announcement also comes at a time when manufacturing in the U.S. seems to be nudging toward a revitalization. For instance, companies have pledged hundreds of billions of dollars toward establishing facilities to make semiconductor chips — the ones needed for smartphones, cars and computers — on U.S. soil, the need for which was highlighted during the worst of the coronavirus pandemic.
At the same time, carmakers across the spectrum are ramping up electric vehicle production. For example, Consumer Reports notes that General Motors is looking to have 20 EV models ready by 2025, aided by a partnership with Honda in which the companies are sharing technologies and engineering for the electric cars.
“There’s a return to industrialization,” Keogh said. “There’s a return to doing things and making things and creating things in America.”
This story was originally published March 7, 2023 at 5:30 AM.
