Volvo Car Corp. will need to add more than 10,000 employees to reach its goal of selling 800,000 units a year by 2020.
"By then, we will have to increase our headcount to 33,000 – 35,000 employees," Volvo CEO Stefan Jacoby told Automotive News Europe.
Volvo currently employs about 24,000 employees worldwide -- about 16,000 in Sweden, 5,000 in Belgium, 1,000 in China and 2,000 in its other markets.
Most of those additional employees will be in China, where Volvo targets annual sales of 200,000 by 2020, up from an expected 48,000 to 49,000 this year and 31,000 in 2010.
Jacoby said Volvo will open a China factory in Chengdu in 2013 with a capacity of 150,000 units and about 3,000 employees. Volvo hopes the Chinese government will approve a second plant in China early next year.
Volvo has not suffered a sales decline because of falling economic confidence, Jacoby said.
"There is no sign of a slowdown. Our order books are filled up until spring 2012," the CEO said.
Jacoby said he expects Volvo's global sales to be between 430,000 and 440,000 units this year. Last year, Volvo sold 374,000 cars. Jacoby said Volvo is fortunate that its biggest European markets are in Scandinavia and Germany, so it is not dependent on crisis-hit countries in southern Europe where car sales are falling.
