General Motors announced it will be investing $380 million in the Wentzville Assembly Plant Thursday.

This investment includes plans to create 1,660 new jobs, according to Gov. Jay Nixon’s news release.

The news release stated the company will bring back their second shift of workers, which will employ 400 new workers to help produce GMC Savana vans in January 2012. GM is also bringing production of the redesigned Chevrolet Colorado to the Wentzville plant.

“We are very happy that GM has decided to invest here and that the plant is open and expanding,” Wentzville Mayor Paul Lambi said.

Plant planner Chris Schupbach said hiring has begun for the second production shift. He said they are using referrals from current employees to hire new employees. This second shift is a replacement of the one that was cut in August 2009.

“They are starting to come back into production work shortly and the second shift will begin after the new year,” Schupbach said. “Their first day will be Jan. 3.”

Schupbach said the reaction at the plant to the investment was very positive.

“Everyone at the plant is extremely excited, especially given the current situation,” he said.

Schupbach said the $380 million investment will be used to improve the plant’s infrastructure and to build an addition, on which construction will start soon.

Lambi said the addition will be about 500,000 square feet, and the current plant is about 1.2 million square feet under roof.

“The existing plant is huge,” he said.

Lambi said he thinks the investment will decrease unemployment in Wentzville.

“There will be an immediate increase in jobs,” Lambi said.

Lambi said the additions to the plant are expected to take about 15 months.

According to the Center for Automotive Research, the job multiplier for motor vehicle manufacturing is 10, meaning that for every job created in automobile manufacturing, 10 other jobs are created.

Lambi said people looking for work should look at businesses and industries that support the auto industry, ranging from trucking to IT work.

“The chance of landing a job in the assembly plant is not that high, but what (people) don’t see are those 10 jobs, ” Lambi said.

Lambi said during the past few years, legislation has been put in place to support the auto industry in Missouri and that a year ago they began to put together tax incentive packages.

“It was a huge team effort involving every level of government,” Lambi said.

Lambi said at the city level, GM will receive property tax incentives on a sliding scale based on how many jobs come to realization.

“They don’t get any tax breaks unless they bring news jobs,” Lambi said.

Lambi himself said he is very impressed with the comeback GM has made since it declared bankruptcy in 2009.

“It’s a remarkable story for a company that was bankrupt to be reinvesting this much,” he said.