Wichita ? Cessna Aircraft expects to add 1,500 jobs next year, most of them in Wichita, company officials said this week.

The plan is to bring about 1,200 of those jobs to Wichita, said Jim Walters, senior vice president for human resources.

“It’s primarily, if not solely, driven by growth,” Walters said.

Cessna officials have said they expect to deliver 380 business jets in 2007, including 44 Citation Mustangs from the Independence plant. In 2008, the company plans to deliver 470 jets, including about 100 Mustangs.

About 60 percent of the new jobs will be sheet metal assemblers, avionics technicians and other direct labor jobs, Walters said. The rest will be engineering and other professional positions as well as salaried support jobs.

Cessna has about 14,400 workers, including 11,000 in Wichita.

The Independence plant has about 1,100 employees. It will add 150 to 200 jobs next year as Mustang production increases.

Cessna’s backlog of orders hit a record $11.9 billion at the end of September. That is up $1.5 billion from the previous three months. Cessna business jets are sold out for the next three years.

The company sold 609 jets – more than twice its pace of deliveries – in the first nine months of the year. The growth is overloading Cessna’s Wichita operation.

“We’re bursting at the seams,” Walters said. “That’s a challenge right now.”

With the job market being tight, it has been difficult to find skilled workers, he said. The company is meeting its needs, but that is becoming a tougher challenge, Walters said.

The new technical training center at Col. James Jabara Airport will be key, officials said. The center is scheduled to open in late 2009 or early 2010.

Wichita Area Technical College president Peter Gustaf said Wichita’s need for skilled workers is being driven by three factors: changes in technology, retiring baby boomers and a high demand for aircraft.

“We don’t have the numbers locally that can replace the growth, but we have the numbers regionally,” Gustaf said. “We have to increase our reach and our ability to draw people in from a distance.”