Third Shifts Return, and That's No Yawning Matter

摘要

Venus Walker gets her two teenage kids settled in each night and then heads to her job at General Motors' metal-stamping plant in Lordstown, Ohio, about 60 miles southeast of Cleveland. She gets home in time to see them off to school. Walker, 51, is one of thousands of auto-workers in the U.S. benefiting from the return of a third shift at factories-often from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. For the first time since the car industry's collapse in 2009, many plants are running 24 hours a day. At the nadir, some plants ran only one eight-hour shift. U.S. auto plants this year may operate at about 81 percent capacity after falling as low as 49 percent in 2009, according to estimates from researcher IHS Automotive.