Boeing to recruit 800 direct employees in India, with help from IIT: Report

Hiring plan to embrace functions ranging from core engineering to frontline factory workers to human resources

With a view to tapping further into India's booming aerospace industry, American plane maker Boeing Co. is looking to hire around 800 direct employees in India over the next two years.

According to a report in Mint, the company, which currently employs close to 1,200 direct employees in India, is likely to have 1,500 direct employees by 2017-end as it hires for job profiles ranging from core engineering to fronline factory workers, and for human resources. Boeing also expects its partner firms to increase the number of people working on its projects.

“We have 144,000 employees worldwide approximately. The population here has grown very quickly and we have aspirations to add more beyond that (1,500 by year-end),” Heidi Capozzi, Boeing’s senior vice-president for human resources globally, told the business daily in an interview.

Boeing and other international aerospace firms are looking to expand their operations in India as the country is set to become the third-largest aviation market by 2025. According to a International Air Transport Association (IATA) published in October, India, by 2036, will have about 478 million air passengers, more than twice that of Japan (just under 225 million) and Germany (just over 200 million). 

“We’ve set aspirations to have 25 per cent of our footprint outside the US. We’ve focused on key target markets and obviously India is a big one of those,” Capozzi said.

Boeing has reportedly associated with the National Centre for Aerospace Innovation and Research with Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay and Aerospace Network Research Consortium with the Indian Institute of Science-Bangalore to help with its hiring roadmap.

Boeing's India vice-president Pratyush Kumar said Boeing will play a role in helping the aerospace market evolve in India in terms of training graduates for the industry. “Things like aircraft maintenance engineers— there are a lot of people graduating but not enough (who are) trained. The government of India has asked us to create a finishing school—not for us, for our customers. We are building that right now and it should come online in the first quarter next year,” Kumar said.