In a Thursday announcement, General Motors (GM) confirmed that the next-generation model of the company’s Chevrolet Cruze compact car for the North American market will be manufactured, as expected, at its Ohio factories, which build the present version of the vehicle.

For building the next-generation Chevrolet Cruze, which will likely hit the markets by 2014-end, GM and two local United Auto Workers (UAW) unions will make a $200 million investment in its Lordstown, Ohio, plant; and an additional $20 million investment in its Parma, Ohio, plant.

Along with the total of $220 million investment – which, according to GM, will largely go towards “facility rearrangement, equipment, machinery and tooling” -, GM will also retain over 5,000 jobs at the Lordstown assembly complex and the Parma metal stamping facility.

The Lordstown assembly operation is already 46 years old and it has been associated with the production of GM’s small Chevrolets, going back to the Chevrolet Vega in the 1970s. Having survived GM’s bankruptcy restructuring, the Lordstown plant started manufacturing that the currently-available Cruze in September 2010.

With GM already having started retooling the Lordstown factory, Glenn Johnson – President of UAW Local 1112 – said at a recent news conference that GM’s decision to build next-generation Cruze in Ohio marks “a great day at Lordstown”; and added: “As leaders, we secured the future of this plant for a very long time.”