As workers train, Hyundai Metaplant salary picture takes shape

Caption

Construction of the Hyundai Metaplant in Bryan Co., GA. July 3, 2024.

Credit: Justin Taylor/The Current

Amira McKee, The Current 

Early in the morning a lifelong Savannahnian and a military veteran commute 50 minutes in a 15-year-old SUV from Savannah to the Hyundai Metaplant, the $7.56 billion electric vehicle factory rising from amid the pine forests of rural Bryan County. 

The two men are among the more than 1,471 workers already hired as the Korean manufacturer pushes to get the first car off the assembly line by December.

Georgia and southeast coastal counties are subsidizing Hyundai and its suppliers in the form of $2.1 billion in tax breaks, construction costs, discount land and other perks, a deal that Gov. Brian Kemp announced would produce good-paying jobs for hard-working Georgians. 

The largesse comes with conditions. Hyundai Metaplant, the LG joint-venture battery facility, and five affiliated Hyundai suppliers must together invest $5.545 billion and hire at least 8,500 workers by 2031 at an average annual yearly salary of $58,105. Those jobs must be retained until 2048. 

Four months into their new jobs, however, the two commuting workers and four other employees at the Metaplant who spoke to The Current on background have mixed reviews about the sprawling workplace. What some have started to realize is that not all of the new Hyundai-related jobs are created equal.

The Current analyzed the agreements signed by the companies that will be based on the Metaplant site and in surrounding counties and found that only two of the eight publicly available agreements — Hyundai Metaplant and Hyundai Mobis — promise salaries higher than $58,000.

Credit: Amira McKee/The Current

For the other six companies that are beholden to the state development benefits, among 17 off-site suppliers, their average annual salaries will be less than the suggested retail price of the electric SUVs that their workers are building. 

Two workers who spoke to The Current but didn’t want their names published for fear of retaliation from their employer make $20 per hour on the factory floor practicing how to build car seats. 

Their shift entails applying fabric and foam to the steel frames to gain enough experience and speed to meet the Hyundai subsidiary requirements necessary to produce its target of 300,000 electric vehicles a year. 

Their annualized pay equals $41,600 — roughly two-thirds the price of the 2025 Hyundai IONIQ 5, an electric SUV with a suggested retail price of $66,100, that will be built there.

Promised salaries

The headline-catching salary of $58,105 represents an average, meaning if every worker on the site was paid the same they’d each make $58,105 a year plus benefits. That payscale is above the average worker salaries in Coastal Georgia counties, which the 2022 U.S. Census Bureau data reported ranging from $30,686 in Bulloch to $46,305 in Effingham. 

Yet among the seven companies at the Metaplant, this average salary isn’t necessarily representative of the take-home pay for current workers.

The Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America, one of seven companies listed together in the Metaplant economic agreement, pay their production workers a base salary of $22.40 an hour — or around $46,592 a year — while maintenance positions start at $30.70 an hour. 

The other six companies lumped into the Metaplant’s economic development agreement set their pay independent of HMGMA despite committing together to the $58,105 average salary. 

Credit: Amira McKee/The Current

HMGMA will not gather the salary data from the on-site affiliates until March 2025, when their first annual report to the state is due, according to Bianca Johnson, an HMGMA spokesperson.  The company does not coordinate with these affiliates on pay nor plan to, though each company is beholden to the same economic agreement, she said. 

Of the 1,471 new workers that HMGMA reported in its biannual count on June 30, the spokesperson told The Current that 859 are employed by HMGMA directly. The remaining 616 new hires are working for one of the affiliated companies.

If the seven companies on the Metaplant do not together produce 8,500 jobs with an average salary of $58,105 by 2031, HMGMA risks losing billions in public aid, and could be forced to pay back part of the value of its incentive package.

“Due to this, HMGMA is confident that the average pay of all on-site entities will reach, if not exceed, $58,105 by the end of the performance period of Dec. 31, 2031, as required by the EDA,” Johnson said in a statement, referring to the Economic Development Agreement with the state. 

For workers looking for employment at the Metaplant or in its production chain, the average salary will vary starkly across suppliers and companies. 

Credit: Amira McKee/The Current

For employees at the more than half dozen other suppliers that have promised to create almost 4,500 additional jobs in separate agreements with the state, those differences are also stark.

On the high-end, Hyundai Mobis, a Hyundai-affiliated parts manufacturer, has promised the highest average pay of $61,642 plus benefits a year, or nearly $30 an hour.

While Seohan Auto Georgia, a South Korean company whose Liberty County plant will build Hyundai’s brake system and drive shaft, will pay its workers an average salary of $31,304 a year plus benefits—the equivalent of around $15 an hour. 

A bumpy road

Discussions of wages among the seat-building team at the Metaplant hit fever pitch last month. 

Without warning, they all saw their paycheck rise from $20 to $22 an hour. Perhaps, one worker thought, their wages were increased as the plant approached operation in December. 

But, two weeks after the surprise, an HR representative delivered bad news with steely frankness. The HR representative told the 35-person team that the raise was an error. The salary bump, he said, would be deducted from their future paychecks.

Though the workers grumbled about the perceived injustice, no one spoke up. 

Instead, each made their way to the table that Hyundai HR had set up in the break room that explained the options for workers to arrange a repayment plan. Fearing the consequences, they didn’t ask too many questions.

The Hyundai affiliate did not respond to requests for comment.

Adding insult to injury, one of the workers found that his car windshield had been damaged at the makeshift parking lot he and other teammates have to use as the 3,000-acre Metaplant remains a construction site. 

Another worker suffered a punctured tire from the industrial nails littering the site. The company does not offer a safe parking zone, they say, and did not offer to pay for the damages. Neither does the company offer a shuttle for its workers. 

“​​The Metaplant is an active construction site. HMGMA strives to create a safe work environment but cannot prevent all issues that may occur from driving on a construction site,” HMGMA spokesperson Johnson wrote in a statement to The Current. 

Many of the seat-building team have now finished paying back their mistaken raise, and their paychecks have returned to $20 an hour. 

One worker told The Current that HR has said verbally the team will make more when the manufacturing plant officially opens. He’s not sure he’ll stick around that long. 

Here’s a look at average wages for the Hyundai Metaplant, its suppliers

• Seohan Auto Georgia: 188 workers averaging $31,304 a year plus benefits [$15/hr]
• PHA: 402 workers averaging $37,440 a year plus benefits [$18/hr]
• Seoyon E-Hwa Savannah: 500 workers averaging $37,440 plus benefits [$18/hr]
• Sewon America:  740 workers averaging $37,440 a year plus benefits [$18/hr]
• Joon Georgia: 630 workers averaging $45,000 a year plus benefits [$21.65/hr]
• Ecoplastic Corporation: 456 workers averaging at least $45,000 a year plus benefits [$21.65/hr]
• Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America (including affiliate suppliers and the joint-venture battery facility): 8,500 workers averaging $58,105 a year plus benefits [$28/hr]
• Hyundai Mobis: 1,578 workers averaging $61,642  a year plus benefits [$30/hr]

This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with The Current.