JCB’s South Side factory will start producing heavy construction equipment by this time next year.
That means the company is trying to attract local workers for its 1,500 jobs, 500 of which it hopes to have filled by 2026.
On Friday’s episode of the podcast bigcitysmalltown, David Carver, JCB Texas’ operations manager, talked about what those jobs will look like.
“Generally, for JCB as a business, for every job that we employ, there tends to be six jobs in the supply chain,” Carver said.
The company will need forklift drivers, welders, assemblers, painters, office staff and other workers once its two buildings open — an assembly building, as well as a paint and manufacturing building.
JCB’s jobs provide opportunity for upward mobility, Carver added. He started working on the floor at a JCB facility and now is responsible for building and running a factory.
“JCB is really looking for a wide range of people. Anybody that’s looking for a long range career with a great attitude,” Carver said. “I started in JCB at the shop level and worked my way up through the business. That’s not unusual.”
JCB currently employs 24 people in the San Antonio area, Carver said. Currently, the company’s website lists one open job within 15 miles of San Antonio: a manufacturing engineer position.
During an October interview, Carver said JCB will ramp up hiring as it gets closer to its factory’s opening date in 2026. Carver said wages will be competitive. The company is surrounded by other manufacturing employers, like Toyota, and committed to paying at least $20.54 per hour when it selected San Antonio for its plant.
Carver said San Antonio has felt welcoming and collaborative every step of the way, though, even with other manufacturers hiring in the area.
“We’ll be advertising for jobs at the same time, it will create a natural competition, but it doesn’t feel like competition,” he said. “It really feels like a team working together to make a total number of jobs.”
He added that the company will emphasize local hiring. “We’re looking for people from San Antonio to work in San Antonio,” Carver said.
It’s part of a broader effort to find suppliers in Texas.
“Our strategy, since we’ve started, is really to do everything local, to really start in San Antonio and then push outwards,” Carver said. “We’re looking for local suppliers. We’re looking for people who are local first and then pushing that out across the rest of the U.S.”
He added that JCB is looking at Toyota’s model for bringing in suppliers. When the Japanese car manufacturer started building its South Side facility in 2003, it brought suppliers along with it. Those companies set up shop in the area and hired their own workers.
“We’ve got existing suppliers already that are looking to relocate to San Antonio to stay with JCB and provide a local service. We’ve met with some of those great local suppliers of Toyota,” Carver said. “The way that they set up their businesses is great. We’re learning what they did with Toyota and how that model was formed. We have that opportunity on the site.”
He noted that JCB is only using 84 acres for its plant — roughly 20% of its 400-acre Southside site.