Daily News
From Home Furnishing Business
IKEA Begins Recruiting in New Zealand as Future Store Nears Completion
December 18,
2024 by Karen Parrish in Business Strategy, Industry 
With the iconic blue walls now covering most of the future store, the warehouse just being completed, and the mass recruitment starting soon, the expansion of IKEA to New Zealand is gaining momentum approximately a year before the planned opening.
Work continues in the showroom, restaurant, and on the roof as the remaining blue facade of the Auckland store is expected to be finished by early 2025. The steel frame containing 4,800 tons of structural steel, will soon be completed, which is twice the amount used in a typical IKEA location thanks to New Zealand’s earthquake protection regulations. By mid-2025, the iconic yellow IKEA wordmark is expected to be up.
Recruitment for the store team has begun, with the mass recruitment of over 400 co-workers to occur in early 2025.
“Bringing our home furnishing range of well-designed and affordable products of good quality to a new market always comes with a special emotion,” says Tolga Öncu, head of retail at IKEA Retail (Ingka Group). “I am very pleased with the pace of construction and the dedication of our co-workers and partners on the ground. We are humbled by the interest and anticipation for IKEA in New Zealand, and we look very much forward to making 2025 a year to remember.”
In addition to the progress on the future store, the construction of the IKEA warehouse in New Zealand has been fully completed. The facility, situated about 20 kilometers from the store, will support online deliveries to homes across all parts of New Zealand from day one – whether the customers shop in-store, online or over the phone with IKEA.
When it opens, New Zealand will be the first new market for Ingka Group, the largest IKEA retailer, since 2020, when it opened its first store in Slovenia.
The ongoing expansion cycle is part of a larger investment aimed at making IKEA even more accessible to the many people across the globe. In total, more than EUR 5 billion will be invested by FY27 in optimizing the existing IKEA locations in 31 markets and opening new ones.