Seat to hire 250 in Catalonia after “excellent” results

Seat will hire 250 people in the near future, as the Catalan car manufacturer confirmed on Monday. This will mean that the firm will have hired 515 new employees in its Martorell plant (northwest of Barcelona) in the first months of 2018. From June 1, all the newly hired employees will have permanent contracts in the company. According to an HR official, “the excellent results of Seat are turning into more opportunities to create quality job positions.”

Indeed, the car manufacturer started the year with positive figures. In the first term of 2018, production in the plant in Catalonia has increased 12.3% compared to the same period of 2017. More than 130,000 vehicles have been manufactured, that is around 2,300 per day.

Seat already announced good news in January: the company had achieved its best yearly results in terms of sales, since 2001. In 2017 it sold around 470,000 cars. This meant some 14% more than in 2016, and an annual increase, for a fifth year in a row. Seat sold in 2017 a 45% more of vehicles than in 2012. The León and Alhambra models were the most successful ones among buyers. This, despite the political crisis in Catalonia peaking last autumn. Seat decided to stay in Catalonia despite “political and monarchical pressure” to move its HQ to Madrid, as a senior official confirmed last October.

In February this year, Seat announced that it would include Shazam, the popular music recognition app, in its cars. The Catalan company is the biggest contributing firm to the country’s GDP.