Rolex To Build $1 Billion Switzerland Factory, Employ 2,000 Workers Following Growing Demand

Rolex is set to build a billion-dollar factory in Switzerland that will employ up to 2,000 workers amid growing demand for its products.

The luxury watch brand plans to build the factory on the 100,000-square-meter land it bought in Bulle in the Swiss canton (or state) of Fribourg in western Switzerland, Swiss public broadcaster Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS) reported.

The acquisition of the production site still requires a go-signal from the Bulle parliament.

"A project of a rare scale is on track in Bulle with the prestigious company Rolex," Olivier Curty, president of the state council for Fribourg, said, as quoted by RTS. "This significant investment will create very many jobs. The project is on the right track and the Fribourg authorities will do everything to ensure that it succeeds."

The building is expected to be completed in 2029, according to RTS.

As the factory will take several years to complete, Rolex will build three temporary production facilities for its timepieces in Fribourg to boost output by 2025 amid the rising demand for its products, Bloomberg reported. It will break ground on the facilities later this year, the company told the outlet in an email.

Rolex officials said work on a 9,000-square-meter facility in Romont, Switzerland, will commence in the second half of 2023, with production expected to start in 2025, according to the outlet.

A temporary facility will also be built at the Vivier SA industrial park in Villaz-Saint-Pierre, Switzerland, which will begin operating in 2024. There will also be a recruitment center in Bulle.

Rolex currently operates four facilities in Switzerland, including its world headquarters in Geneva.

"The new production site in Bulle, just like these three temporary installations, will allow Rolex to expand its production capacity, support growth and meet ever-increasing demand," the company said, as quoted by Bloomberg.

Production lines will reportedly be installed gradually, and recruitment will be staggered, according to the company. The workers will be trained in Romont before being transferred to Bulle once the site is ready, the outlet reported.

New watches are currently unavailable for immediate purchase through the company's authorized network. This has prompted dealers, such as Watches of Switzerland Group, to resort to buyer wait lists.

"The scarcity of our products is not a strategy on our part. Our current production cannot meet the existing demand in an exhaustive way, at least not without reducing the quality of our watches – something we refuse to do as the quality of our products must never be compromised," Rolex told Yahoo Finance in 2021.

"[Rolex watches] are assembled by hand, with extreme care, to meet the brand's unique and high-quality standards of quality, performance and aesthetics. Understandably, this naturally restricts our production capacities – which we continue to increase as much as possible and always according to our quality criteria," it continued.