Toyota's New South Side Axle Plant Is Still Hiring at $22.50 an Hour

Published: September 8, 2026 | By LocalJobPage Team

SAN ANTONIO, TX — The biggest hiring story in Bexar County right now isn't a job fair in a hotel ballroom. It's a 500,000-square-foot building off Applewhite Road that most of the city has never driven past.

Toyota's new rear axle plant on the far South Side is adding 411 jobs, and production roles start at $22.50 an hour with no manufacturing experience required.

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Employer	Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Texas
Location	1 Lone Star Pass, San Antonio, TX 78264
New jobs	411 at the rear axle plant
Production pay	Starts at $22.50/hr plus a rotation premium
Skilled maintenance pay	Starts at $35.90/hr
Experience required	None for production roles
Hiring window	In groups, running into 2027
Apply	Toyota's own careers site

What Toyota Actually Built Down There

The rear axle plant is a $531 million facility on the Toyota campus at Lone Star Pass, just inside Loop 410 South where the city thins out toward Applewhite and Southside ISD country. It's built for 500,000 rear axles a year across 17 variations. Roughly 40 percent stay on campus for the Tundras and Sequoias assembled next door; the rest ship south to Toyota's Tacoma plants in Mexico.

What matters for job seekers is what the building brought with it: heavy arc welding and machining, which the San Antonio campus had never done before. Five welding and machining lines, three assembly lines, about 150 dedicated robots. That's a different skill mix than the truck line up the road, and it's why the plant hired from outside instead of shuffling people internally.

💵 The Pay, and Why It Lands Where It Does

Production positions make up the large majority of the 411 and start at $22.50 an hour plus a rotation premium. Skilled maintenance roles start at $35.90 an hour, but those were filled first and are essentially gone — Toyota sent some of those hires to sister plants in Alabama and Japan for training before the line ever ran.

Put $22.50 next to the rest of the market and the gap is real. Cross-referenced salary aggregators put the average San Antonio production worker at roughly $15 an hour, with most of the field between about $13 and $20. Texas preempts city and county wage ordinances, so the whole metro — Converse, Schertz, the far South Side, all of it — sits on the same $7.25 federal floor, $2.13 tipped. The address where the work happens always decides the legal floor; in Texas that floor just happens to be the same everywhere.

None of which makes $7.25 a going rate. It makes $22.50 with a rotation premium and on-site medical, pharmacy, dental and eye care unusually strong for entry-level production work here.

⚠️ Read This Before You Apply

A few things worth knowing so you don't waste an application:

The skilled maintenance openings are effectively closed. If you're a maintenance tech chasing the $35.90 number, that wave already went through.
Hiring is happening in groups, not all at once. Toyota has said it's bringing production workers on in waves running into 2027. Not seeing a posting today doesn't mean the door is shut.
It is a genuine commute for most of the city. Lone Star Pass is far south. From Stone Oak or the North Side, that's a real run down 281 or I-35 to Loop 410 in shift traffic.
Shift rotation is part of the deal. That's what the rotation premium pays for.

🔥 The Bigger Wave Behind It

The axle plant is the near-term hiring. The bigger story is what Toyota and the governor's office announced on July 6, 2026: a $3.6 billion expansion adding a second assembly line, roughly 2.5 million square feet and 2,000 more direct jobs as Tacoma production moves here. That builds out through 2030, so it is not a job you apply for this month — but it tells you where the South Side labor market is pointed.

It drags the supply chain with it, too. The campus is unusual for hosting on-site suppliers — more than twenty of them, thousands more workers inside the same gates — and they hire on their own timelines and their own postings. If you'd rather build a path in than apply cold, both Palo Alto College and St. Philip's College run advanced manufacturing programs, and Palo Alto sits about fifteen minutes from the plant gate.

🔎 Where to Aim Right Now

Apply for the plant itself through Toyota's own Texas careers page. For everything orbiting it — the on-site suppliers, the logistics operations, the shops along I-35 South chasing the same people — start here:

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need manufacturing experience?

No. Toyota has said the rear axle plant's production roles require no prior manufacturing experience, and trains on site, including a virtual welding setup built on video game technology.

How much do the jobs pay?

Production positions start at $22.50 an hour plus a rotation premium. Skilled maintenance roles start at $35.90 an hour, though that hiring wave is already complete.

Where is the plant?

Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Texas sits at 1 Lone Star Pass, San Antonio, TX 78264, on the far South Side off Applewhite Road. The rear axle facility is on that same campus.

Is Toyota still hiring, or did I miss it?

Production hiring has run in groups and Toyota has indicated it continues into 2027. Check the careers page regularly rather than reading a quiet week as the end of it.

What does the $3.6 billion expansion mean for jobs?

A second assembly line and about 2,000 more direct positions, built out through 2030. Future openings, not current ones.

Get Your Application Ready

If a South Side manufacturing job is what you're after, be ready before the next hiring group opens instead of scrambling when it does. Create your free LocalJobPage account so new San Antonio postings reach you, and browse the Career Center for role-by-role guidance.

Employers: competing with Toyota for the same welders, machine operators and maintenance techs? Post your San Antonio openings here and reach local candidates who are already looking.