SteelAsia to expand operations, hire 20 thousand

CEBU, Philippines — SteelAsia Manufacturing Corp., recently announced to expand its operations in the Philippines and will be needing more than 20,000 employees.

SteelAsia President and CEO Benjamin Yao announced that the company plans to establish three to five steel manufacturing facilities across the nation in the next three years to address the requirements of the country’s growing economy.

And with the country’s looming shortage in industrial skills, the company has

partnered with Germany’s Badische Stahl-Engineering GmbH (BSE) for the design and curriculum development of its world-class training center that will open in the second quarter of the year.

Yao said that the company has engaged BSE to ensure that the training center, which will produce SteelAsia’s future workers, applies the best practices in the world.

“We believe that we are in the best position to determine the type of skills that are needed for our operations. With SteelAsia’s rapid growth, we have to ensure that we have the competent and skilled manpower required in our manufacturing plants. And a training center with the help of the best in the world - BSE - will allow us to achieve this goal,” he said.

“With this training center located in southern Luzon, we are not only addressing the company’s manpower needs but we also hope to provide skills training and employment opportunities to the unemployed near our plants, even if they are unskilled,” Yao added.

SteelAsia sent several employees, including plant engineers and technicians, for two weeks to the BSW Anlagenbau und Ausbildung GmbH (BAG) Training Center in Kehl, Germany for them to get a first-hand experience of training center programs, processes, and facilities.

BSE serves as a service provider for increasing the efficiency and productivity in the electric steel industry worldwide. It is part of the Badische Group which is the market leader in production and distribution of reinforcing steel products in Germany. Its sister company, the Badische Stahlwerke GmbH (BSW), is one of the world’s most productive electric steel plants that is well-known for its operational efficiency and productivity.

Yao said SteelAsia also reached out to other established technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions such as DualTech and Toyota Motor Philippines School of Technology, to obtain even more best practices and expert knowledge in running a learning center.

He noted that the company consulted government agencies like the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) for the operational requirements and curriculum enrichment of the training center.

SteelAsia is the country’s flagship steel company, with presence in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao and producing more than two million metric tons of rebar a year.

Aside from reinforcing steel bars or rebars, the company’s expansion plans will enable it to produce other steel products that are currently 100% imported by the country such as wire rods, steel beams, sheet piles, and heavy angles.