Through the end of 2018, GE plans to recruit approximately 100 people for its new LM Wind Power offshore wind turbine blade plant in Cherbourg, France.
The company will offer each new employee a training and certification program in a local “center of excellence” in preparation for the start of the facility’s prototyping phase, expected in January 2019.
LM Wind Power will train each new employee – through a four- to six-week theoretical and practical program – on wind turbine blade manufacturing.
“This plant will become a source of employment in the region,” says Duncan Berry, president and CEO of LM Wind Power, which is owned by GE. “One-hundred managers, technicians and operators on permanent contracts are to be filled in the year 2018. The recruitments will be pursued in 2019, and during periods of full production, the site should accommodate more than 550 people.”
Furthermore, the facility could also create up to 2,000 indirect jobs in the region, according to GE’s estimates.
GE has begun recruiting the management team, and about 10 employees have already taken up their duties in the factory. The site has identified candidates for a quarter of the positions to be filled, which leaves around 70 vacancies in 2018.
The plant will serve customers in the growing European offshore wind turbine market. It will have the capability to produce a 107-meter-length blade dedicated to GE’s Haliade-X 12 MW. GE has begun an expansion of the plant in order to ensure the expected production capacity of this blade.
