April 22, 2026 · Elkhart · Huntington · Greene

Hanjung America, Bloomfield Defense Hub, and WIA Training Dollars: Three Events Hitting Indiana Manufacturing Labor Costs Before 2027

Hanjung America's $28/hr Huntington plant, the Bloomfield defense campus, and a new WIA funding path are each hitting Indiana manufacturing labor costs before Q1 2027

Daniel BurkePublished every day

Three announcements from the past two weeks will directly affect Indiana manufacturing labor costs, shop floor workforce competition, and access to federal training dollars, all before Q1 2027. If you operate in northeast, southern, or northern Indiana, at least one of these belongs on your operations or HR agenda this week.

Hanjung America Breaks Ground in Huntington County, $28/Hr Is the New Northeast Indiana Offer Floor

Hanjung America, the US subsidiary of South Korea-based Hanjung NCS, broke ground April 14th on a 435,000-square-foot facility at Riverfork West Industrial Park in Huntington. The plant will manufacture cooling systems and fire suppression technologies for large-scale energy storage containers, with Stellantis and Samsung SDI's Star Plus Energy EV battery operation in Kokomo as primary customers. The company plans to hire 300 at startup, scaling to 440-plus at full capacity. Average hourly wage: above $28. Hiring opens late 2026.

For Indiana manufacturers within commuting distance of Huntington, that $28-per-hour figure is a retention exposure that starts now. By the time Hanjung's postings hit the market, that number is the reference point workers will compare against your current offer letter. If your wage bands haven't been reviewed in the last 12 months and your best people are inside that commute radius, building the retention response before the posting appears is the only move that costs you less than reacting after an exit interview.

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Johns Hopkins and ACMI Are Building a Defense Manufacturing Hub Near Crane, and a New Safety Standard for Indiana Industry

The American Center for Manufacturing and Innovation and Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering announced a strategic partnership on April 2nd to develop safety training and career pathways for ACMI's national security industrial hub in Bloomfield, Greene County. The campus sits directly adjacent to Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane, covers 1,100 acres, and has 16 companies signed across aerospace, energetics, propellants, advanced manufacturing, and unmanned systems. The anchor tenant is Prometheus Energetics, a $175 million joint venture between Kratos Defense and Raphael Advanced Defense Systems, building a solid rocket motor and munitions production facility on site. The campus carries a $75 million Department of Defense award projected to catalyze roughly $600 million in private investment.

Two things matter for manufacturers operating outside the campus fence. First, if you're within an hour labor radius of Bloomfield, a 16-tenant defense campus with federal funding behind it will compete for your shop floor workforce as it activates. Second, when Johns Hopkins designs a safety framework for that environment, insurers and large customers will start pointing to it as the reference standard for any Indiana facility handling reactive chemistry, pressurized systems, or high-energy processes. That shift arrives within 12 to 24 months. If your facility falls into any of those categories, understanding that framework before your insurer raises it is the better position to be in.

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Northern Indiana Workforce Board Names SlateUp Its 2025 Partner, WIA Training Dollars Now Have a Clearer Front Door

The Northern Indiana Workforce Board named SlateUp its 2025 partner of the year and expanded the South Bend-based manufacturing talent marketplace's role to business services representative for WIA Region 2, covering Elkhart, St. Joseph, Marshall, Fulton, and Kosciusko counties. SlateUp, founded in 2024 by the Notre Dame-anchored 1842 Fund, started inside a single WorkOne office in Elkhart delivering AI-generated, employer-validated career paths to unemployment claimants. NIWB expanded the arrangement based on engagement results.

The structural change is straightforward: WIA dollars are federal workforce training funds most manufacturers never access because the application path is opaque. NIWB's move positions SlateUp as a lower-friction front door to both workforce board services and WIA-eligible training funding in Region 2. If you have open roles in those five counties, there is now a more direct path to filling them with co-funded training support. One note on a figure circulating from SlateUp's press release: the 83,000 unfilled Indiana manufacturing roles figure comes from Kexus Indiana's 2022 report, a point-in-time estimate, not an annual recurring gap. If your team is using that number in planning conversations, frame it as an estimated 83,000 unfilled advanced manufacturing roles as of the last full Kexus benchmark.

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Questions for Your Morning Huddle

Q: What does Hanjung America's $28/hr wage offer mean for northeast Indiana manufacturers? A: It sets a new compensation reference point in the Huntington commute radius that will be live in the labor market by late 2026. Manufacturers with facilities inside that radius should audit current wage bands for at-risk roles now and assess whether retention bonuses, wage adjustments, or training-based promotion paths need to be in place before Hanjung's job postings launch.

Q: How will the Bloomfield defense manufacturing campus affect Indiana labor markets? A: A 16-tenant campus with federal funding and active hiring will compete for shop floor workers within roughly a one-hour labor radius of Bloomfield, and that pressure builds as the campus activates over the next 12 to 24 months. Beyond workforce competition, the Johns Hopkins safety framework being developed for the campus is likely to become an insurer and customer qualification reference for Indiana facilities handling energetics-adjacent processes.

Q: How can manufacturers in WIA Region 2 access federal workforce training funding through SlateUp? A: Contact the Northern Indiana Workforce Board or SlateUp directly to determine whether your open roles and planned upskilling spend qualify for WIA adult or dislocated worker program funding. The eligibility path is role-specific, but NIWB's new arrangement means Region 2 manufacturers in Elkhart, St. Joseph, Marshall, Fulton, and Kosciusko counties have a single, lower-friction point of contact rather than navigating the workforce board's employer operations on their own.

Watch this TEG Daily on YouTube for the full breakdown of all three stories.

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