Hyundai Motor Group has opened a training center at its new multibillion-dollar plant near Savannah, Georgia, a sign that the South Korean automaker is moving forward at the site despite a recent federal immigration raid that resulted in the arrest of hundreds of employees.
Hyundai and the Technical College System of Georgia will operate the 89,000-square-foot facility on the campus about 30 miles west of Savannah, where workers will be trained in computer-aided design, robotics, welding, virtual reality and other skills essential to automotive manufacturing.
In a separate initiative, Hyundai is expanding and renovating its 10 U.S. centers used for training dealership employees, according to a news release from the automaker.
Armed officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the FBI, the Georgia State Patrol and other agencies raided the Hyundai plant in early September and arrested about 480 workers on allegations of being in the U.S. illegally. About 300 of the workers who were detained left the U.S. later in September and returned to South Korea, according to media reports.
Despite the raid straining diplomatic relations between South Korea and the United States, Hyundai is continuing to operate the facility in Ellabell. After the raid, Hyundai said it will invest an additional $2.7 billion at the complex. The company also donated $5 million to Savannah State University, which renamed its education program the Hyundai College of Education.
Hyundai's Ellabell operations encompass several types of manufacturing and development functions. It plans to manufacture both electric and hybrid vehicles, as well as lithium-ion batteries.
"We need a workforce equipped with the skills to build next-generation vehicles," José Muñoz, CEO of Hyundai Motor, said Wednesday at the training center's opening ceremony.
Hyundai spokesman Ira Gabriel declined to comment or provide additional details on the automaker's expansion of its dealership training centers to CoStar News.
Hyundai expects the Georgia facilities to employ about 8,500 workers by 2031. Suppliers and vendors to Hyundai are expected to employ an additional 3,000 to 4,000 workers in the Savannah area. The new Hyundai training center has the capacity to serve about 820 students per session.
The training center is needed, in part, because metropolitan Savannah's current population is too small to adequately support Hyundai's workforce needs, according to local officials. The Savannah area's population was 405,000 in 2020 and grew an estimated 6.6% to 432,000 in 2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
For the record
SSOE Group served as the building architect for the Georgia training center, while Thomas & Hutton provided site design and landscape architecture. Choate was the general contractor.