World Economic Forum Davos 2012: HCL to hire 10K in US, Europe

In one of the biggest announcements related to job creation here at the World Economic Forum, Indian IT major HCL Technologies today said the company will create 10,000 local jobs in Europe and the US over the next five years.

Terming it a socially responsible business model for growth, HCL Tech vice chairman and CEO Vineet Nayar said the company would create these jobs for fresh engineers through partnerships with educational institutes, local governments, local communities, customers and others in these regions.

The announcement came a day after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said here at the WEF Annual Meeting 2012 that Europe would work toward becoming a benchmark investment destination on the global arena, but she would want foreign companies coming there to create jobs as well.

"In the context of a rapidly changing world, the expectation from businesses is evolving to balance pursuits of profit with social and individual imperatives in order to create a sustainable growth model," Nayar said.

"HCL is now taking those efforts to the next level by positively impacting the communities through local job creation and development of an ecosystem to support and encourage innovation. This initiative inverts some fundamental operational assumptions of the industry. HCL operates in by changing the prevalent dynamics around cost, skill base and innovation," he added.

"As our unique 'Employees First' culture has continued to grow and evolve, we've seen more and more HCL employees expressing the desire to see a truly socially responsible business model," he noted.

Nayar said HCL is taking various initiatives led by its investments in building global centres of excellence, running dedicated recruitment and training programmes for college graduates and providing platforms for developing IT skill pool in local communities through collaboration with anchor customers and universities.

"In the months ahead, HCL will be working with 12 universities to offer a six-month elective course -- as well as workshops on technology and management -- and encouraging innovation through contests," he said.

"HCL's technology partners will also join hands in this initiative to provide training in upcoming technologies so that the talent deficit in these areas gets addressed. The company is working closely with government agencies to enlist their support in developing these ecosystems," he added.

The company said that a pilot programme started on these lines across five HCL centres in the US and EU has already shown early signs of success.

HCL group is a $6 billion, leading global technology and IT enterprise comprising two companies listed in India, HCL Technologies and HCL Infosystems.