| Continental Tire is constructing a new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Sumter, South Carolina. The one-million square foot facility will be Continental’s second tire production facility in the United States and will provide 1,600 permanent new positions over two phases of development. The first phase of the project involves construction and the purchase of manufacturing equipment, and Continental expects to start producing passenger and light-truck tires at the plant in 2014. | Continental Tire Plant FactsLocation: Sumter, South CarolinaConstruction Completion: Projected Late 2013Size: ~1,000,000 square feetCost: $334 millionPurpose: Industrial PlantJobs Created: 1,600 full-time, permanent jobsMore Information: http://www.readysc.org/CONTI/Visit the Facebook Page! |
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| Sumter County is an economically depressed area, with high unemployment and low wages. Unemployment across South Carolina is high, with a statewide unemployment rate of 11.1% in August 2011, as compared to 9.1% nationally. Unemployment is even higher in Sumter County, which had an unemployment rate of 12.1% in August 2011. Furthermore, an estimated 20% of people living in Sumter County have incomes below the poverty line. |
| The Continental Tire project will provide high-quality jobs to low-income residents and spur the local economy. The first phase of the new Continental Tire facility will produce 1,157 net new jobs for the region. All jobs to be created are full-time permanent positions that will be created in 2014 as production begins. An estimated 925 of the jobs created during phase one will be hourly positions, of which 90% are entry-level manufacturing production line positions. An additional 232 positions are salaried positions for workers with more experience and additional skills. |  |
| Continental Tire is striving to make the Sumter facility one of the most environmentally-sensitive tire production facilities in the world. This includes incorporating pollution control and monitoring systems that will use the best technology available to exceed the latest U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) emission standards, eliminating the use of harmful solvents in the majority of production processes, and reducing energy consumption through use of innovative heat recovery and energy reuse technologies. Continental has decreased energy consumption, emissions, water consumption and waste generated per ton of product across its worldwide plants over the past decade. The company has also increased the ratio of production materials that are recycled, increasing recycling from 33 percent to 92 percent over the past ten years in the Mount Vernon, Illinois plant. Over the last eight years, for which data is available from environmental reports published online, Continental has consistently ranked among the best tire producers in energy, solvents and water used during production and waste generated during the production process. |
