Mack adds 270 staff at production plant in Pennsylvania

Mack Trucks added about 270 staff at its Lehigh Valley Operations production plant in Pennsylvania in recent months. The production line additions are the latest example of an industrywide trend predicated on rising demand for trucks and the ongoing freight market recovery. The current head count at the Volvo Group division’s biggest assembly plant is now around 2,800 employees, a Mack Trucks spokeswoman told Transport Topics in an email. In the spring of 2025, as the longest freight market downturn in industry memory bit ever harder into orders and sales, the Macungie, Pa., plant laid off about 170 employees. Mack’s North American order intake in the second quarter of 2026 totaled 7,937 trucks, a 95% increase compared with 4,080 in the same period 12 months earlier. U.S. Class 8 retail sales jumped 30% year over year in September and 3.9% in August, according to Omdia Automotive data. June’s total increased 0.3%, the first year-over-year increase since June 2025’s data was released. Sales or registration data lags order numbers. Image Voorhoeve Now, alongside Volvo Group sister company Volvo Trucks North America and their peers, Mack is increasing production line staff. VTNA is hiring up to 500 more workers for its New River Valley plant in Dublin, Va., company President Peter Voorhoeve told Transport Topics recently. Capacity at the Virginia plant — which underwent an expansion that was completed in the summer of 2024 — has been raised, and new hires are being onboarded, Voorhoeve told TT on the sidelines of American Trucking Associations’ 2026 Management Conference & Exhibition. Also at MCE,…

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