Lego bricks demand sends CEO on hiring spree as rivals retrench

By Christian Wienberg, Bloomberg

Kids are clamoring to get their hands on the newest sets of colorful Lego bricks, propelling sales and sparking a recruiting push at the toy giant Lego Group.

Themed sets of building blocks drawing on the popularity of Star Wars and Harry Potter helped the Danish company report a 17% jump in 2022 revenue, and it’s using the momentum to invest in growth. Chief Executive Officer Niels B. Christiansen says that entails hiring thousands of new employees at a time when the toy industry is cutting back.

Speaking in an interview on Tuesday, the CEO said Lego wants to hire 500 more digital experts in Denmark, the UK and China in addition to as many as 6,000 workers for its new factories in the US and Vietnam over a number of years. The Danish company, which is owned by the billionaire Kirk Kristiansen family, will also recruit more people to drive the push to make its colorful building blocks more sustainable, he said.

“We’re growing and we’re taking market share and to continue to do so we need more employees,” he said. “We’re in a good momentum compared with he rest of the industry.”