Ford Motor Company has announced plans to hire around 7,250 workers by 2012. Included in the figure are 1,800 new hires for 2011 at the company’s Louisville, Kentucky plant. Of the 7,250 new hires, 4,000 hourly positions and 750 salaried positions will be added in 2011, and 2,500 hourly jobs will be added in 2012. Ford made the announcement during a presentation at the North American International Auto Show Press Preview in Detroit on January 10, 2011.

Besides Kentucky, it is not yet known where the other Ford jobs will be located. Ford executives have yet to reveal this information, but what has been revealed are more promising details about where the company, and the auto industry, are headed.

Ford’s domestic sales increased 15 percent in 2010, and its market share grew for the second consecutive year, an achievement it had not experienced since 1993.

Jeff Schuster, an analyst with J. D. Power & Associates, has projected sales would rise to 12.8 million vehicles in 2011 and 15 million in 2012, from 11.6 million last year. Ford and General Motors said last week that they expected industrywide sales this year of up to 13.5 million.

The hiring would give Ford nearly as many hourly workers in the United States as G.M., which also made drastic cuts in recent years and now has 53,000.

Both Ford and G.M. earned large profits in 2010, largely because of cutting labor costs and other expenses. Through the first three quarters, earnings were $6.4 billion at Ford and $4.2 billion at G.M. Neither has revealed their financial results for the fourth quarter.