Hankook Tire, South Korea’s No.1 tire maker, will be hiring about 1,200 employees to work at its new plant in the US state of Tennessee, the firm said Wednesday.

The tire maker has already hired some 300 workers at its new US facility, which recently began test runs.

It plans to hire a total of some 1,200 workers there by October, the company spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, South Korea’s second-largest tire firm Kumho Tire also completed constructions of a factory in Macon, Georgia, last May.

It invested some $450 million in building the plant responsible for producing 4 million tires a year.

Observers noted the coincidence of the top two tire manufacturers’ expansion of plants in the US and the inauguration of the Trump administration, which has vowed protectionism.

The US Department of Commerce slapped antidumping taxes of up to 22.57 percent on Chinese tire firms last month based on grounds they had exported truck tires below fair price while receiving government subsidies.

“The large-scale recruitment at Hankook Tire’s US factory comes at the perfect time, as the Trump administration has vowed to push ‘America First’ protectionist measures,” said analyst Kwon Soon-woo of SK Securities.

“The number of tires produced at the US plant is expected to gradually increase. In the US market, for now, the absolute number of Hankook Tire products made outside the US will outnumber those made at the US plant,” Kwon added.

But the two companies denied the timing had been motivated by the US government.

“We have delayed test runs due to various reasons, but neither the test run nor the recruitment was scheduled to square with the Trump administration. We were lucky,” said the spokesperson of Hankook Tire.

A Kumho Tire spokesperson said, “We do not plan on recruiting new workers at the US facility for the time being."

“As the factory is mostly run automatically, it is not hugely relevant to additional recruitment, be it in time for the inauguration of the Trump administration or not.”

Hankook Tire, the world’s seventh-largest tire maker by sales, has invested some $800 million in the US factory.

Built with an aim to increase the firm’s presence in the US market, the US plant has the capacity to produce 5.5 million tires annually.

The local tire manufacturer is aiming to boost production capacity to 1,100 units a year and employ 1,800 workers after running the plant for a about a year or two.

About 400 employees have been hired at the US factory that mainly produces ultrahigh performance tires supplied to global automobile companies, such as Korea’s leading auto firm Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors and Italy-based Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.

Kumho Tire plans to gradually ramp up the production capacity of its US plant to handle 10 million tires each year.

Industry experts say the Korea’s top two tire firms are on the safe side of Trump’s aggressive protectionist policies. 

By Kim Bo-gyung (lisakim425@heraldcorp.com)