Panasonic to hire 6,000 in India by next year

The company said it will hire 2,150 people this year and top it up with another 3,850 in 2012, in contrast to Panasonic Corp's massive job cuts plan by 2013.

"We will have no impact of the global job cuts and we will continue to have deep focus on expansion in the Indian market...Panasonic is very aggressively looking at expansion in India," Panasonic India President Diazo Ito told PTI.

The Tokyo-based firm had announced yesterday that it would slash thousands of jobs worldwide as part of "drastic" restructuring efforts.

Even though it had not disclosed specific details, the company said it expected to have a workforce of about 3,50,000 people by the end of March 31, 2013. At the end of March 31, 2010, Panasonic had a total headcount of 3,84,586.

However in India, the company said it is looking at adding more jobs to keep pace with the strong growth that it has been witnessing in the country.

"We had 10,500 employees in 2010 including all our operations in India and we will have 12,650 employees by the end of 2011 and 16,500 employees by 2012," Ito said.

He said the company has been having a 200 per cent growth in the past three years in India, and "are confident of continuing with the trend for the next two more years".
Panasonic India expects to contribute about five per cent to Panasonic's total overseas sales by 2012 and nearly 10 percent by 2018, he added.

In the recent past, the company has been embarking on an expansion drive in India by opening new manufacturing unit and more retail outlets.

The company had announced an investment of USD 200 million over a period of five years to set up a new manufacturing unit in Haryana. The facility is likely to start manufacturing in August 2012.

"The products are catered to the domestic market and the manufacturing unit will be providing employment to approximately 3,500 staff once it is fully developed and operational," he said.