KERNERSVILLE, N.C. (AP) — A partnership between two behemoth builders of excavating machinery plans to add 340 jobs at a North Carolina plant in return for more than $5 million in incentives. Promised salaries will be below the local average.

Deere-Hitachi Construction Machinery Corp. said Friday it will expand its Forsyth County plant that now employs more than 700. The plant is a partnership between Japan’s Hitachi Construction Machinery and Illinois-based Deere & Co.

State and local governments have promised tax breaks and other incentives worth more than $5 million if it adds the jobs within four years and sustains them for nine years.

The jobs will pay an average of about $42,100 plus benefits. That’s about $500 less than the average Forsyth County wage. The county’s unemployment rate in August was 9.5 percent.

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