Daimler plans 10,000 new jobs in 2011

FRANKFURT – Daimler AG plans to boost its global work force by 10,000 people this year, the company said today. Alone in Germany, the automaker intends to create 4,000 new positions.

Recruitment plans in Germany include taking on approximately 1,900 apprentices and adding about 350 new engineers to work on alternative drive systems, lightweight construction, driver assistance systems and worldwide IT management.

Additionally Daimler is seeking 6,700 skilled workers worldwide, with emphasis being placed on new or expanded plants in Hungary, India and Mexico. In the U.S. the company wants to recruit 1,300 new employees for its truck plants.

In total, Daimler AG employed 260,100 people worldwide in 2010, 164,000 of them in Germany. Globally, this was 3,700 more than in 2009.

Lower profits

Daimler posted a 2010 fourth-quarter profit margin of 8.3 percent, down from 9.5 percent in the third quarter, as the company boosted the Mercedes-Benz unit's development spending by 15 percent to 3.1 billion euros.

Last month, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche said that growth this year will be constrained by factory limits rather than demand as customers snatch up the automaker's Mercedes-Benz cars. Delivery times for build-to-order cars in Germany have climbed to nearly 13 weeks on average compared with a typical waiting period of eight weeks.

Daimler's trucks unit, which makes Mercedes, Freightliner and Fuso vehicles, aims to average a return on sales of 8 percent over the next three years after shutting plants in Asia and North America during the recession. The company predicts sales over the period to rise more than 40 percent to at least 500,000 vehicles, boosted by a new Indian model line.

Bloomberg contributed to this report