It’s been nearly two years since it was first whispered that Korean automaker Kia Motors might be creating 2,500 or more jobs somewhere in the Southeast.

That was eons of clandestine state negotiations, land purchases and a factory groundbreaking ago.

Now, the wait appears to be nearing an end for those wanting to leap aboard the automotive job train that is being generated by South Korea-based Kia’s decision to build a 2.4 million-square-foot assembly plant on 2,200 acres in West Point, near the Alabama line.

The company expects to begin taking applications online for hourly production and maintenance workers by late October or early November, Randy Jackson, Kia’s Georgia human resources director, said Friday.

The Web site is www.kiajobsingeorgia.com. Bookmark it if you’re interested, because its doesn’t appear there will be any job fairs.

“Right now we’re leaning toward online,” Jackson said. “We just think there’s going to be so many (applicants).”

Is 20,000 applicants a stretch for jobs that will pay an average salary and benefits package of $50,000 per year?

“I’d be guessing, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s greater than that,” Jackson said. “Everybody’s guessing on that. I just think that the way we’re approaching it, with the state involvement and everything, we’ll probably get a lot of people participating. So I’m looking for the numbers to be quite large.”

Jackson’s comments came after a two-hour meeting Friday with Georgia’s technical college leaders and Quick Start program administrators. Kia’s corporate headquarters is located on the second floor of West Georgia Technical College’s library.

The LaGrange college and Columbus Technical College have partnered to offer certificate and degree training programs aimed at giving area residents the skills needed to land jobs at the Kia plant or with any other advanced manufacturer.

While the programs don’t guarantee a job with Kia, it should give graduates an edge in the employee selection process, said Daryl Gilley, president of West Georgia.

“We think so simply because they’ll have some advance skills that the general population won’t have that will be directly related to automobile manufacturing,” he said.

Jackson said the training center being built on the Kia site off Interstate 85 is about 95 percent complete. The company will begin using the facility in late October or early November.

The Kia auto assembly plant is scheduled to begin production by November 2009. The vehicle that will be made there has not been determined, Jackson said, although the company has reported the factory will churn out 300,000 cars or sports utility vehicles annually. [Source: ledger-enquirer.com]