With gas prices topping $4 per gallon at the pumps, foreclosures up 6.5 percent nationally, and joblessness stuck above 8 percent in the Lehigh Valley, it took a Mack truck to bust through with good news.

Mack Trucks did just that. The company, which moved its corporate headquarters to Greensboro, N.C., from Allentown two years ago, said April 27 that it would hire about 50 people in its assembly plant in Lower Macungie Township to move its workforce there to nearly 1,000.

“We export trucks, not jobs,” said John Walsh, director of media relations. He said Mack will increase production in the plant on June 1.

“As the market has gradually come back, we've been gradually increasing production and employment at Macungie, where all Mack trucks for North America and export are built.

“In June of last year, we recalled about 75 workers at the plant. In October 2010, we added another 125 or so employees. And now we're hiring approximately 50 more.

“We're proud to be part of the only heavy-duty truck manufacturing group still building exclusively in the U.S. for this market.’’

Not only has Mack been feeding the economy, it’s been part of the “greening” of America.

“The trucks we're building in Macungie today, fully certified to the EPA 2010 standards, are the cleanest in the world in terms of regulated emissions,” Walsh said. “They also use significantly less fuel than their predecessors, good not only for customers' bottom lines, but also for the environment.”

Volvo AB of Sweden, the parent of Mack, also said on April 27 that its first-quarter sales and net income increased as worldwide truck sales rose. Volvo’s net income more than doubled to $607 million, while sales rose 22 percent to $7.8 billion.

First-quarter Volvo truck deliveries more than doubled in North America, to 4,725 units, while Mack Trucks deliveries in North America rose 34 percent, to 3,819 units.

Worldwide truck sales rose 49percent to 55,069 units, and truck orders rose 40 percent, Volvo said.

Volvo also raised its 2011 truck sales forecasts for Europe and North America, saying industry-wide deliveries for each region would be 230,000 to 240,000 trucks, up from a previous forecast of 220,000 vehicles for each., according to industry magazine “Transport Topics.”

Leif Johansson, who will retire as president and chief executive officer of Volvo this spring, agreed with the “green’’ scenario.

“The North American truck market is driven primarily by the need to replace the increasingly older truck fleet with more modern and fuel-efficient trucks and by a positive trend in the US economy and corresponding higher freight volumes,” Johansson said in a quarterly corporate report.

“It is gratifying that we are capturing market shares thanks to highly competitive trucks.”