Hiring is well underway for the $17 billion Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. semiconductor plant in Taylor.

The HT Group, an Austin-based staffing agency that Samsung tapped to help with recruiting, is working to immediately fill 170 commercial construction positions, said Lori Lankford, HT Group executive recruiter.

"That will continue to evolve and grow," Lankford said.

She said her firm will pursue "advertising, job fairs and whatever we need to do to make this happen for them. We will be here to help them, and hopefully, it is for years to come.”

HT Group aims to hire those 170 construction workers by the end of the year, but that marks just an initial round of jobs for a project that could employ thousands.

Open positions listed online include project control specialist, construction engineer, mechanical engineer and administrative assistant, among many others.

Site work started earlier this year for the fabrication plant southwest of downtown Taylor. Samsung has previously said that building the factory could require 6,500 construction workers, while it should support at least 2,000 full-time jobs once up and running.

"No matter what the economy does in the next few years, this project is happening and the jobs will still be available," Lankford said.

Construction is expected to be completed in 2024.

HT Group is working primarily on Samsung’s Taylor campus but it also also works with the South Korean conglomerate at its Northeast Austin plant, where the company has been making semiconductors for 25 years.

Lankford said she started working with Samsung two years ago at the Austin campus.

"When we heard this project was coming, we started to gather market intelligence to share with them since a lot of their leadership would be coming from Korea to help run the project," she said. "We wanted to share salary expectations for the area as well as the hiring difficulties that Austin but also Texas and the U.S. have been facing. We have built a trust between us and an understanding of their needs and the expectations they have long term."

The HT Group, founded in 2001, said it has connected more than 65,000 people with jobs. Its primary focus area is Central Texas but it works around the United States.

"We have clients that are startups as well as clients that we have partnered with for years that are large and well established," Lankford said. "We are a pretty diverse recruiting firm when it comes to client needs and we understand the market and changes that happen within it."

While Samsung will already need to hire thousands for its Taylor fabrication plant, the company has revealed it could expand even further in the Austin area in the coming decades. Plans have not been finalized, but the company is considering investing nearly $200 billion and creating at least 10,000 jobs in both Taylor and Austin.