Snorkel’s parent company, Tanfield Group, was forced to downsize the workforce at its Vigo Centre headquarters in Washington, Tyne & Wear, as the recession severely impacted the powered access industry. With global demand once more returning for aerial lifts, the company has begun recruiting and is expanding its apprentice programme.
Group operations director Brendan Campbell said: “After talking to our key customers, our build plan for 2012 calls for up to a 50% growth in our assembly workforce between now and September. This will be a gradual process as we ramp up production in line with demand.
“Principally we will be employing production operatives for our assembly lines, but we are also taking on three new apprentices as we build for the future.”
The company recently announced it was raising an additional £12m from investors to help increase production capacity in line with surging demand for its products – its order book has swelled by 170% in recent months.
The aerial lift industry suffered a sharp downturn in mid-2008, which lasted for three years. Snorkel is now seeing resurgent demand from Northern Europe and strong growth in Latin America, driven by the mining sector and public works projects.
The Vigo Centre factory in Washington exports more than 95% of its production to go to mainland Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Pacific Rim. It is also Snorkel’s global headquarters – the company has satellite factories in North America, China and New Zealand.
“Although we had to downsize during the recession, we stuck firmly to a strategy of keeping our core people and enhancing their skill sets,” added Mr Campbell. “We are emerging from a tough, prolonged downturn as a much stronger, smarter company and are now ready for the next growth phase.”
Snorkel is also expanding the workforce at its US production facility in Elwood, Kansas, by 30% this year.
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