PLN NEEDS TO RECRUIT 26,000 NEW EMPLOYEES

Surabaya, E Java, Dec 6 (ANTARA) - State-owned electricity company PLN needs a total of 26,000 new employees each year to replace its retired workers, its chief said.

"The number of our employees retiring every year due to old age reaches about 26,000," PLN President Director Fachmi Mochtar said here over the weekend.

He said the increase in the number of workers could raise PLN's performance. "The new employees will include 2,700 for power plants, 4,000 for new transmission network and the remaining for other sectors," he said.

With the new workers, Fachmi said it was estimated that PLN's total number of workers would reach 40,000 by 2018.

"We hope that new workers would be able to contribute to the improvement of the state-power firm," the PLN president director said.

He said that the employees were also expected to help the company meet its 9% consumption target growth in 2010.

"The target is achievable considering the government's economic growth projection which is set at six percent," he said.

Besides planning to increase the number of employees, PLN is also ready to increase its designed production capacity to 38,000 megawatts in 2014.

For this purpose, PLN is now expanding its networks into remote areas throughout the country. "At present PLN's designed capacity is recorded at 30,000 MW which is expected to meet power supply throughout the country," Fachmi Mochtar said.

He said that with the targeted designed capacity of 38,000 MW in 2014 rotating blackouts would no longer be necessary. "We believed in 2014 there will be no longer any power outage in the regions," he said.

The PLN chief said that the company would be able to eliminate any disrupted power supply in the Java-Bali power grid in 2010 so that since then customers throughout the country would no longer experience power cuts.***2***