20 Aug 2010

Samoa's biggest private sector employer hiring almost 200 more staff

10:01 am on 20 August 2010

Samoa's biggest private sector employer, the automotive parts manufacturer Yazaki Samoa, plans to have hired almost 200 extra staff in time for added demand at Christmas.

The general manager of the company, which assembles car wiring, says a high turnover through staff moving to New Zealand is one reason for the hiring programme but increased demand from a Toyota plant in Australia is also responsible.

Funefea'i Oliva Va'ai says 85 new workers have been hired over the past month and another 100 or more will be hired by October, taking staff numbers to a maximum of 900.

He hopes Yazaki Samoa's now weathered the worst effects of the global financial crisis.

"We hope that is true, there was one time when we were down to a little over 600 and we were working like three days, two days a week. We're giving priority to the people who actually were made redundant during the rather unfortunate time where we had the recession."