SK Innovation today announced it plans to hire more than 1,000 skilled American workers by the end of 2021 as it prepares for initial production at the first of two EV battery plants in Commerce, with the support of the State of Georgia, Jackson County and City of Commerce. In of the largest economic projects in Georgia’s history, SK Innovation affirmed its long-range investment plans for the facility that would make Georgia one of the largest hubs of EV battery manufacturing in the world.

SK Innovation, through SK Battery America – its subsidiary of Battery Business in the U.S., recently reached a hiring milestone with the on-boarding of its first 60 employees at the Commerce site. These employees include production supervisors, production/process/electrical engineers and quality/logistics specialists who will set up, work and serve as the trainers for the EV battery production workforce at the two SK Battery America plants.

SK Battery America’s EV plants will directly create more than 2,600 permanent jobs in the Jackson County area by 2024. The company began initial hiring and training employees at the Georgia site with plans to have more than 150 employees by the end of this year. In addition, about 900 employees are expected to be recruited next year. The new jobs will include a range of technical roles from production operators to senior engineers focused on manufacturing highly sophisticated lithium-ion battery cells at scale. To help begin the process of hiring and training workers, SK Battery America has signed a partnership agreement with Quick Start and Lanier Technical College in Georgia.

▲The employees of SK Battery America participate in Quick Start training program

SK Innovation also recently achieved key construction milestones at the Georgia site with the completion of the exterior of its first manufacturing plant and ground breaking on the second plant at the same site. The two EV battery plants at Georgia are part of SK Innovation’s $2.6 billion investment in its U.S. battery business. The first plant is scheduled to begin initial operations in 2021 with mass production in 2022, and the second one is expected to begin mass production in 2023. Together, the two SK Battery America plants will have total annual capacity of 21.5GWh, which is enough to power more than 300,000 electric vehicles. As the market for EVs continues to grow, SK Innovation is committed to making Georgia a world leader in EV battery manufacturing.