Hyundai Motor to invest $51 billion, hire 80,000 by 2026

Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Euisun Chung delivers a New Year message at Kia AutoLand in Gwangmyeong, Gyeonggi, on Wednesday. [HYUNDAI MOTOR]

Hyundai Motor Group will invest 68 trillion won ($50.6 billion) and directly hire 80,000 new employees in Korea through 2026.

More than 198,000 new jobs will be created as a result, according to the group’s announcement on Wednesday.

The goal is to “secure future growth engines through constant transformation and innovation” amid a turbulent business environment, the Hyundai Motor Group said in a release.

The focus of investments will include electrification, advanced air mobility vehicles, autonomous driving and robotics as well as hydrogen and next-generation nuclear reactor technology.

Hyundai’s new headquarters, dubbed the Global Business Center (GBC), is also one of its priorities, as the auto conglomerate recently revised the design of the building and submitted the modified proposal to local authorities.

The 68 trillion won investment will translate into an annual average of 22.7 trillion won a year, an increase of some 30 percent over last year’s 17.5 trillion won. The automotive sector, including future mobility projects, accounts for 42.8 trillion, or 63 percent of the total planned expenditure.

Hyundai plans to dedicate 46 percent of the total, or 31.1 trillion won, to research and development (R&D) involving electrification, EV batteries and software-defined vehicles (SDVs). SDVs, or what the industry calls smartphones on wheels, are equipped with an over-the-air system that can receive rolling updates as they are released.

For regular investments — such as the GBC project, the construction of new EV plants, an expansion of R&D infrastructure and joint investments with other Hyundai companies — the group has allocated 35.3 trillion won, or 52 percent of the total.

Hyundai plans to build its new headquarters in Gangnam District, southern Seoul, consisting of two 50-story buildings and four shorter buildings. When the Seoul government approves the revised plan that was filed in February by the latter half of next year, the conglomerate will invest 4.6 trillion won in the construction through 2026, creating 9,200 new jobs.

Moreover, Hyundai will channel 1.6 trillion won into strategic investment aimed at enhancing technological capabilities in key future businesses such as mobility and software.

New hires will mostly be focused on future growth sectors, including EVs and SDVs, with 55 percent, or 44,000 of the planned 80,000 hires, joining in those sectors.

Hyundai Motor and Kia plan to expand their lineups with a total of 31 battery-powered EV models by 2030. The goal is to ramp up annual domestic EV production to 1.51 million by 2030, of which 920,000 units will be exported, up from 330,000 units in 2022.

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]