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VOLVO

Volvo Cars plans to hire 1,200 new staff

Swedish car maker Volvo said Tuesday that it plans to hire 1,200 new employees, mostly engineers to meet the development of electric cars and production expansion.

Published: 29 March 2011 12:56 CEST
Volvo Cars plans to hire 1,200 new staff

“The majority of the new recruitments will be engineers within research and

development where the company needs among other things new competence in the

field of electrification,” the company said in a statement.

Some 1,000 people, including 900 engineers, will be hired in Sweden, while 200 new employees will be hired to work at Volvo’s largest plant in Ghent, Belgium.

Volvo cars employed 19,500 people at the end of 2010, some 12,900 in Sweden and 4,500 in Belgium.

The number of Volvo employees shrank heavily during the crisis in the auto industry in 2008 and 2009. In 2007, some 24,400 people worked for Volvo.

But sales bounced back 11 percent last year and China’s Geely, which bought Volvo from US giant Ford in August 2010, hopes to double sales over the next 10 years, mainly for the Chinese market.

It hopes for total Volvo sales to reach 800,000 by 2020, up from 373,525 cars in 2010.

To reach its goal, the company plans to invest some $11 billion in China over the next five years and to open a plant there in 2012 or 2013.

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VOLVO

Sweden’s Volvo regains strength after pandemic puts brakes on earnings

Swedish truck maker Volvo Group was hit by a sharp drop in earnings due to the coronavirus pandemic, but business rebounded at the end of the year.

Published: 3 February 2021 12:21 CET
Sweden's Volvo regains strength after pandemic puts brakes on earnings
Volvo Group CEO Martin Lundstedt. Photo: Adam Ihse/TT

In 2020, the group saw “dramatic fluctuations in demand” due to the Covid-19 pandemic, chief executive Martin Lundstedt said in a statement.

For 2021, Volvo raised its sales forecasts in its trucks division – its core business – in Europe, North America and Brazil.

However, it said it also expected “production disturbances and increased costs” due to a “strained” supply chain, noting a global shortage of semiconductors across industries.

The truck making sector is particularly sensitive to the global economic situation and is usually hard hit during crises.

In March, as the pandemic took hold around the world, Volvo suspended operations at most of its sites in 18 countries and halted production at Renault Trucks, which it owns, in Belgium and France.

Operations gradually resumed mid-year, but not enough to compensate for the drop in earnings.

With annual sales down 22 percent to 338 billion kronor (33.4 billion euros, $40 billion), the group posted a 46 percent plunge in net profit to 19.3 billion kronor (1.9 billion euros).

Operating margin fell from 11.5 to 8.1 percent.

However, the group did manage to cut costs by 20 percent.

“We have significantly improved our volume and cost flexibility, which were crucial factors behind our earnings resilience in 2020,” the group said.

Volvo's business regained strength in the second half of the year.

“Customer usage of trucks and machines increased when the Covid-19 restrictions were eased during the summer and this development continued during both the third and fourth quarters,” it said.

“Both the transport activity and the construction business are back at levels on par with the prior year in most markets.”

For the fourth quarter alone, the company reported a 38-percent rise in net profit from a year earlier.

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