Auto parts company to add 318 jobs at Newport News plant

An automotive parts maker announced Monday that it plans to spend $194 million and add 318 jobs to its manufacturing plant here.Continental AG, which makes fuel injection parts for such automakers as Ford and Chrysler, said it will close a South Carolina plant and move its diesel manufacturing operations to Hampton Roads.The company currently employs 576 people at the Newport News facility and will add the jobs in the next 36 months, said Michele Tinson, a spokeswoman for the company."That is, unless of course we continue to see the market deteriorate," she said. "No one has a crystal ball."Continental will close its plant in Blythewood, S.C., by the end of next year. About 440 people currently work at that plant, outside of Columbia. Tinson said some of those workers would be given the opportunity to apply for jobs in Newport News.The announcement comes 11 months after the company laid off 51 workers, or nearly 12 percent of the hourly work force, at the local plant.Tinson said the choice to consolidate in Hampton Roads rather than in South Carolina was clear: The Newport News facility is larger and would have been more expensive to close.Gov. Timothy M. Kaine also announced Monday that the state would give $3 million in performance grants for the company's expansion."The consolidation project is tremendous news for Virginia," Kaine said in a news release. "Valuable jobs could have been transferred out of state. Newport News fit Continental's needs, and the trained workforce in the region put the Commonwealth in the lead."The Newport News facility opened in 1971 and is 366,000 square feet, according to the company's Web site.Continental is the fourth-largest automotive supplier in the world and employs 150,000 in 36 countries.