Japanese Uniqlo to hire Vietnamese employees

Japanese clothing retail chain Uniqlo will employ a number of Vietnamese graduates to work overseas as store manager/area manager and production manager.

It has launched five workshops in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to seek potential Vietnamese candidates who will contribute to the company’s global expansion project.

It is a part of the New Graduate Global Hiring program — the expansion of its new graduate hiring overseas — aiming at new graduates who have the potential of becoming its next generation of managers for the globalization of the Uniqlo brand.

Asked about the number of expected Vietnamese employees to be hired, the representatives said the more the better since a great quantity of human resources is in need in its global expansion scheme.

Vietnamese graduates of any majors from big universities in Hanoi and HCMC or those are competent in business-level English (Japanese language skill is not required) with business acumen / business management knowledge or study background will have a chance to apply for the jobs.

Recommended universities include Hanoi University of Technology, Vietnam National University Hanoi, Foreign Trade University Hanoi, University of Social Sciences and Humanities HCMC or HCMC University of Technology.

Opportunities are also opened up to all university graduates meeting the requirements, and to those who have experience in the field, said Uniqlo’s representatives at the final company briefing session organized at HCMC University of Technology on Sunday afternoon.

Store managers are expected to increase sales through designing the layout of store merchandise, maintaining inventories, managing store staffs and ensuring customer satisfaction in stores in all over the globe or in Uniqlo headquarters in Japan.

Production managers at manufacturing site or in production headquarters in Shanghai are expected to perform production process management, quality control, maintain relationship with material manufacturers and so on.

The applicants who have attended the workshop can log on for Uniqlo’s online CV entry, write an essay and join an online skill test. Those who are chosen will take part in an interview session in Vietnam which is expected on May 26-29.

The finalists will participate in the final interview in Japan and be offered an internship at Uniqlo there by June this year, while production manager candidates will have a production internship in Shanghai, China one month earlier.

They will start as a store employee during a minimum of 6 months to a maximum 2 years in Japan. During this period, the first goal of each candidate is to attain a UNIQLO store manager certification in Japan.

The production manager trainee would continuously need to work at production related departments in HQ and manufacturing site before promotion to production manager.

With the target to be the world leading clothing manufacturer- retailer by 2020 with annual sales of 500 million yen ($60 billion), Uniqlo is speeding up opening more stores in European region and Asia.

It has a total of 953 stores, including 809 stores in Japan, 144 stores in foreign countries like the UK, France, Russia, South Korea, China, Singapore, Malaysia and the US.

The brand, the world No.1 retail chain with revenues of US$8.15 billion as of the latest fiscal year ended on August 2010, enjoyed an annual growth of about 19 percent last year. – Tuoitre

Tags: Japanese Uniqlo