Flextronics adds 12,000 in Malaysia

Flextronics has begun a major recruitment drive as it invests in a new industrial campus in the Port of Tanjung Pelepas (PTP) in Johor. According to Business Times Flextronics is planning to take in 12,000 employees by the middle of 2007 when the industrial campus is in full operation. "We are looking for a cross-section of people, some at the junior end, such as operators, right through to experienced people - engineers and managers," Flextronics Consumer Digital vice-president Daniel Wong told Business Times in PTP recently. So far, key positions have been filled at the new industrial campus where some manufacturing activities have begun, currently on a small scale. Business Times also reports that Flextronics is planning to streamline its Malaysian operations and therefore a number of employees will be transferred to the new industrial park and when the new site is up and running the Tampoi and Malacca facilities will be closed. "Most of the technical and management staff we hire will be Malaysian. It is only in the direct labour area that we have to supplement the local workforce with foreign labour from Indonesia, Vietnam and India," said Wong. "Going forward, we plan to streamline our operations by consolidating certain functions into a single location and today, for businesses in Tampoi and Malacca, it makes more sense economically to put them under one roof. These facilities are supporting one particular business segment, that is, consumer digital," said Wong. "What we plan to do at the PTP industrial campus is to provide a full suite of integrated services to customers in the consumer digital business segment, ranging from designing to manufacturing and shipping out the finished products," said Wong. Flextronics is investing close to RM500 million in the new industrial campus. This includes money for construction, equipment, training of staff and setting up design laboratories.