Indian tech giants to create hundreds of jobs after City of Melbourne trade mission
Melbourne's trade delegation to India has secured 520 new tech jobs, in what lord mayor Nick Reece claims is the result of his mission to “aggressively pursue” corporate jobs for the city.
The City of Melbourne is hailing the success of its recent trade delegation to India, with lord mayor Nick Reece saying the Indian tech sector’s move into the southern capital could become the biggest investment in Australian jobs since the post-war automotive industry, outside the resources sector.
Since the November trip, five global Indian IT companies have committed to major expansions of their Melbourne operations, with HCLTech and Firstsource confirming they are expanding their headcounts in Melbourne by 400 and 120 respectively, in what the council believes will give a $95m boost to the economy.
Mr Reece visited the headquarters of five Indian-owned tech companies with Melbourne outposts with his deputy Roshena Campbell and innovation councillor Andrew Rowse, visiting HCLTech, Firstsource, Infosys, TechMahindra and Wipro in Bengaluru and Delhi.
Firstsource has confirmed it is projecting to double its Melbourne-based workforce to 800 employees in the next six to 12 months, HCLTech currently employs 800 people in its Melbourne operations and is predicting a 15 per cent growth over the next three years, while Infosys, TechMahindra and Wipro reinforced their commitment to further significant growth in Melbourne.
“When I became lord mayor, I said I aggressively wanted to pursue corporate jobs for Melbourne, including headquarters,” said Labor Right-aligned Mr Reece
“We’ve had a particular focus on Asia, where there are many companies who have now grown to a size that they are going global.
“We think Melbourne is the logical headquarters for these companies to establish an Oceania base and to grow.”
Mr Reece said Melbourne’s advantages included its huge pool of IT graduates, an “Indian literate” workforce, and “competitive corporate costs”.
“Melbourne is the Indian capital of Australia. We have the biggest Indian diaspora by quite some margin. It’s also our fastest growing new community,” he said.
“Many of those new Australians are very well qualified. The idea of working for an Indian IT company in Melbourne is a very compelling proposition.
“You’d probably need to go back to the investment that US and Japanese auto-makers made in Australia following WWII to see investment on this scale – certainly outside the resources sector.”
While in India, Mr Reece also led Australian delegations at the Didac international education and skills conference in Delhi and the International Film Festival of India in Goa.
The Indian trip follows City of Melbourne delegations to China and Japan earlier this year.
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