The U.S. aluminum industry directly employs more than 162,000 workers and supports hundreds of thousands of additional jobs in nearly every state. This workforce helps innovators make good products great and great products even better by using high quality, sustainable aluminum -- the metal of choice for industries ranging from automotive to aerospace to packaging to building & construction. Sustained demand growth -- and anticipated continued growth moving forward, particularly in the automotive sector -- has led to some significant investment announcements from the industry over the past several years. Trade enforcement efforts targeting unfairly subsidized Chinese imports in the aluminum foil and common alloy aluminum sheet markets have also driven investment.
Since 2013, Aluminum Association member companies have announced or completed U.S. plant expansion investment totaling more than $3 billion, creating thousands of American manufacturing jobs:
In October 2019, Novelis broke ground on a $36 million investment to to expand and upgrade recycling capacity at its Greensboro, Ga. facility. The investment includes adding state-of-the-art equipment for aluminum scrap recycling, a new baghouse for improved dust mitigation and enhanced designs for safer and more efficient traffic flow. The facility employs 145 workers.
In February 2019, Arconic announced a $100 million investment to expand its hot mill capability and add downstream equipment capabilities to manufacture industrial and automotive aluminum products in its Tennessee Operations facility near Knoxville, TN. The investment is expected to create 70 new jobs and will include increased production of common alloy aluminum sheet, which was the subject of a successful targeted trade enforcement effort in 2018.
Many of these investments are designed to capture anticipated growth in the use of aluminum in the automotive market in the coming years as carmakers strive to produce lighter, safer more fuel-efficient vehicles. Ongoing announcements by Ford and others have underscored the increasing use of aluminum in light vehicles, which is expected to grow dramatically over the next decade. These expansions are expected to add hundreds of thousands of tons of aluminum auto sheet capacity right here in the U.S.
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