Swedish furniture giant Ikea is planning to hire 10,000, both direct and indirect, in Maharashtra over the next two to three years, a senior company

executive has said.

The company opened its first store in Hyderabad in August this year and the Navi Mumbai will be the second store in the country.

"Next year, we are opening the Navi Mumbai store, for which we are planning to recruit 5,000 directly and an equal number will be hired indirectly over the two to three years," Ikea India's people and culture manager Anna-Carin

Mansson told PTI here.

This will include directly hiring 1,000 by mid-next year and 1,500 indirectly for services, including assembly among others, she said adding as per the Ikea policy, 50 percent of this recruitment will be of women at all levels.

"We believe in equality and providing a balanced, safe and secure work environment for all employees. We are also open for recruiting from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) communities," she added.

The world's largest furniture chain is looking to hire people in ecommerce, sales, logistics, digital and Human Resource's and mostly they hire locals, she said.

"With our employee friendly policies, we are expecting to keep the attrition levels very low. We believe in value- based recruitment, where the core values of an individual is considered and not what is said in the CV. We provide equal

opportunities to all our co-workers, help them grow and enable them to follow their passion," she added.

Ikea has several employee friendly policies, such as day care facilities, parental leave policy, transport policy, competence development, mentoring, pension plan among others.

"Maharashtra is an important market for us. We have been sourcing from the state for many decades and now we are ready to enter the market in 2019 with our full offer to be able to serve all the customers," Ikea India market manager for Maharashtra Per Hornell said.

Ikea opened its first store in the country in Hyderabad in August, where it employs 1,000 people.

The company is the first major single brand retailer to get FDI approval and plans to open several stores and multiple touch points across the main cities over the next 10 years .

Ikea has four land sites in Telangana, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Delhi/NCR, and continues to look for more in other major cities.

Ikea operates 423 Ikea stores in 50 countries with a sales volume of 38.3 billion euros.