FEI Company soon wants to expand its workforce in Eindhoven with 60 people,10% of its current staff. To enable this, the company is investing in its recruitment campaign. The desired growth comes on top of the 35 to 40 people they already hired this year, says FEI location director Gerrit van der Beek. “We are currently investing heavily in research and development as well as production, but this does mean we need a lot of extra staff. At the moment we are working with 600 people in Eindhoven. Recruitment is going better because of the economic circumstances, but as we want the best possible staff we are expanding our recruitment campaign with advertisements and social media.”

Van der Beek explains that the expansion is necessary because of the strong growth FEI experienced after the economic crisis. “It started in the last quarter of 2010 and continued throughout 2011. I can already say our turnover has increased 30% compared to last year. Now we need to mark time and ensure that quality and working professionally is secured in the organization.” Also the latest acquisition, microscope plant Till Photonics in Munich, provides new opportunities. “By combining the technology of this company with ours, results in great products”.

The company, headquartered in Hillsboro in the US, has assigned Hein Gijsbers in charge of production. He is the third director in Eindhoven, next to Van der Beek (R&D) and Tony Edwards (marketing). Gijsbers worked at Philips Healthcare: “The business model of FEI can be compared to Healthcare. It is about building and maintaining machines that are getting more and more complicated. You can also see in the value chain which is also increasingly complex. I find it a challenge to give shape to the large growth of FEI.” The nine directors of FEI manage the company worldwide. The three directors in Eindhoven also manage the establishments in the United States and the Czech Republic.

More information: Bodo de Wit, (bdewit@bom.nl / +31 (0)6-15249859)

Source: Eindhovens Dagblad