SAIL to hire 525 freshers to manage expanding operations

State-owned SAIL has announced that it will hire 525 freshers, majority from technical background, to work on its steel plants, which are undergoing Rs 70,000-crore capacity expansion.

The country's largest steelmaker SAIL, which has a work force of about 1.2 lakh employee, has announced its hiring plans even as it sees its headcount shrinking by an average 6,000-7,000 employees every year on account of "natural separation", including retirements.

The firm will enrol 450 people as management trainees in the technical field, while 75 for administrative purposes.
    
"To man front-line executive positions in its plants/ units, SAIL invites applications for the posts of management trainees (technical) and management trainees(administration)," a senior SAIL official told PTI.
    
The candidates have to submit their applications by October 25 and take a competitive test, dates of which would be announced later.
    
"We are offering a basic salary package (CTC) of Rs 6.5 lakh per annum," the official said.
    
The steel major operates five integrated steel plants besides special units across the country. SAIL is expanding its annual steel production capacity to 23 million tonnes by 2012 from the present 14 million tonnes. The expansion is to cost the company about Rs 70,000 crore.
    
By the end of the first quarter of the current fiscal, SAIL's total employee cost stood at Rs 2,011.71 crore, which was almost double of the year-ago period.
    
SAIL aims to bring down the cost of production by rationalising workforce, improvement in efficiency of its operations among others.
    
Minster of State for Steel A Sai Prathap had earlier said that SAIL's workforce will shrink by around 20,000 employees by 2011-12.