Epson PHL to hire 6,000 more workers

By Vernon Velasco | Special to the BusinessMirror

EPSON Philippines Corp. (EPC) foresees the hike in the number of its workers to as many as 20,000 when it completes the construction of its P4.7-billion Lima Technology Park expansion in Lipa, Batangas, in 2017.

EPC President and Country Manager Toshimitsu Tanaka said this translates to 6,000 to 8,000 more workers, on top of the current 12,000, stressing that the Philippines is the preferred expansion area due to its competitive labor cost.

“Philippine labor cost is stable, so we can predict the salary to be stable,” said the company executive, who will also concurrently take the helm as Epson Southeast Asia managing director, president director of Epson Thailand and director of Epson Indonesia starting June.

“We have three main factories located in China, the Philippines and Indonesia. We have no plan to expand the factory in China because the labor cost there is very, very high, higher by almost 20 percent. Indonesian labor cost has also increased drastically,” Tanaka said. “Meanwhile, the labor cost in the Philippines is one of the cheapest in the region.”

Apart from the Lima Industrial Park in Batangas, Epson has the Light Industry Science Park in Cabuyao, Laguna, where the company produces projectors, mini printer models and components.

Tanaka said Epson Philippines, however, has no plan to expand outside Batangas.

“[We zero in on] Batangas, [where] we produce inkjet printers and projectors [to export] worldwide,” Tanaka said. “It is the biggest factory in this region, and upon completion of the plant, the Philippine factory will become the biggest factory [of Epson] worldwide.”

The multibillion-peso expansion is expected to ratchet up the annual production capacity of inkjet printers and 3LCD projectors. The existing plants are already producing 6 million printers and 1.2 million to 1.3 million projectors annually for the local market and export worldwide.

Epson had also announced in December 2014 that it will install a 3,000-kilowatt-hour solar-power-generation system to fuel the new facilities and considerably cut cost on electricity consumption.

The expansion brings to P21.6 billion Seiko Epson Corp.’s total investment in the Philippines.