Maruti Suzuki India to hire 950 in the next fiscal

The country's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki India today said it will hire an additional 950 people in the next fiscal including some expatriates from Europe and the US.

"We are looking at 950 people for 2010-11. A good chunk will go for research and development," Maruti Suzuki India Managing Executive Officer Administration (HR, Finance and IT) S Y Siddiqui told reporters on the sidelines of SIAM HR conclave.

At present, MSI has a staff strength of 7,500 employees. Enrollment in the next fiscal will be higher than the 800 people recruited this fiscal by the company, Siddiqui said.

He, however, said the company might go for an additional hiring once details are finalised about its upcoming capacity expansion at the Manesar plant.

It is 950 as of now and it will get revised when we look at the expanded capacity. The company will alos go for overseas hiring as part of its plans to tap the global talent pool.

"By April, we will be finalising a few guys and around 10 guys may join us by May-June. We are looking at Europe as a major area for hiring expatriates and all the new overseas employees will have experiences of 7-8 years to 27-28 years," said Siddiqui.

The company already employees over a dozen expatriate staff mainly from the US and Europe and they are recruited both as direct employees on the pay-roll or under retainership.

When asked about the impact on revenue due to the planned hiring next fiscal, Siddiqui said, "around two per cent of our sales revenue goes to salary of the employees. Our hiring and salary were not affected even during the recent downturn and definitely this years our salary offering will be more competitive than last year."

Meanwhile, MSI also said it opposes the Parikh committee recommendations for flat increase of excise duty on all kinds of diesel vehicles, company's Chairman R C Bhargava said the excise duty hike should be based on engine capacity of respective vehicle model.

He also added that the company will be phasing out its small car M-800 from 13 cities where BS-IV emissions norms are going to be operational from April 1 and added that the company has no plans to upgrade the model to BS-IV standard.

"I don't think we have any plan to make the M-800 BS-IV compliant," he said.