Toyota to hire 2,000 in India

The world's largest car maker by volumes, Toyota Motor Corporation, said on Thursday it will hire 2,000 more people in India as the auto maker gears up to launch a small car in the country by 2011.

Toyota Motor Corporation, which runs its Indian operation through a joint venture -- Toyota Kirloskar Motor -- with the Kirloskar Group, is constructing the second plant at its Bangalore facility with an investment of Rs 3,200 crore (Rs 32 billion) to manufacture the small car.

"We will require a strong manpower to roll out our small car from India. We will have an additional 2,000 people in our second plant which is currently under construction," Toyota Kirloskar Motor managing director Hiroshi Nakagawa told PTI at the ongoing Tokyo Motor Show in Tokyo.

He said the company has started the recruitment process and it will be completed by the time the plant is commissioned in 2011.

The plant will have an initial annual production capacity of 70,000 units, which could be expanded up to two lakh units.

TKM has an existing facility in Bangalore with an annual installed capacity of 80,000 units.

The existing plant has about 4,000 people, which include staff from the sales and marketing division also. Besides hiring new employees, TKM is also planing to shift some of its employees to the upcoming plant from the existing one, Nakagawa added.