TOP Glove Corp Bhd has been on a rapid expansion, following the marked increase in glove demand which is estimated to grow from a pre-pandemic level of about 10% per annum, to about 15% per annum post-pandemic.

In line with Top Glove’s strategic expansion plans – which will see its production capacity increase by over 25% in 2021 – the company launched a recruitment drive last month by offering some 9,000 positions for Malaysians (a 30% increase from its 7,000 new hires in 2020).

In addition, Top Glove has committed to provide a broad range of career choices for Malaysia’s Technical and Vocational Training and Education (TVET) graduates. This is as the glove maker continues to further automate and digitalise its operations, thus creating the need for more skilled workers.

The recruitment initiative is also expected to narrow the country’s unemployment gap as a result of the ongoing pandemic.

Accordingly, out of the 9,000 vacancies, 2,300 job opportunities have been allocated for local TVET graduates across its Malaysian operations including Klang, Shah Alam, Kluang, Kota Bahru, Kulim, Ipoh, Banting and Negeri Sembilan.

“In the past three years, we have embarked on increased use of automation, digitalisation, robotics, and artificial intelligence (AI) across its operations,” the company pointed out.

“The introduction of these new technologies has resulted in the company’s immediate need for suitably skilled Malaysian talent, in particular TVET graduates who are proficient in these areas.”

The world’s largest glove producer which currently has a 1:4 staff to worker ratio aims to bring this to a 1:1 staff to worker ratio by FY2025, resulting from the adoption of technologies on its fourth industrial revolution (IR4.0) journey.

For this year, the Top Glove has planned monthly virtual career fairs with the next event scheduled to take place on Feb 20 (Saturday). The company also expects to increase the frequency of these fairs to twice a month, as needed.

Meanwhile, Top Glove’s organic expansion plans for 2021 and 2022 are as below:

Top Glove has also earmarked RM10 bil for capital expenditure (CAPEX) over the next five years from FY2021 to FY2025 which will increase capacity by an additional 100 billion pieces of gloves. – Feb 5, 2021