Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is promising to hire 5,000 staff in Canada over the next five years. The Mumbai-headquartered firm’s buildout comes even as other tech giants scale back expansions here. Here’s what you need to know:
The new space: TCS has opened a new research and innovation centre—its fifth globally—that will occupy 16,000 sq. ft. on Toronto’s University Ave. “This is an opportune time for us to invest and expand in Canada,” country head Soumen Roy told The Logic Tuesday, citing the growth in the company’s clientele here, the availability of workers as well as startups and universities with which it can work.
TCS now has more than 7,000 staff in Canada. The firm employed 606,331 people globally as of the end of last month. TCS made ₹1.92 trillion (US$25.7 billion) in revenue in its fiscal year ended March 31, with about $1.33 billion of that from its Canadian subsidiary. Roy said the expansion isn’t just nearshoring to serve U.S. clients. “What we are looking at is Canada as a market [on] its own.” The firm will focus on AI, cloud and analytics.
The backstory: Ontario Economic Development Minister Vic Fedeli met with company executives on a November 2019 tour of India. “Tata is going to be a very key player in Ontario’s digital transformation for many decades to come,” he told The Logic.
He cited the local talent pool, tech ecosystem and the Progressive Conservative government’s cuts to costs like workplace insurance and property taxes as factors in attracting such firms. The province isn’t giving TCS any specific incentives or direct funding for the new centre, Fedeli said.
The Council of Canadian Innovators, a scale-up lobby group, has called on policymakers to stop courting large foreign tech firms. Such expansions are “only making the bidding war worse” in a tight labour market, the group’s president Benjamin Bergen said in March. Fedeli acknowledged those concerns, but noted his job is job creation. “We can’t stall our growth,” he said. “We think there is a lot to learn from each of these companies who we are attracting to Ontario.” The province is focusing on training and turning out more students from post-secondary institutions rather than “trying to control the demand side.”
The trend: In March 2021, TCS said it would hire 500 people in Montreal over three years. The same month, fellow big-four Indian IT firms HCL Technologies and Infosys each announced plans for 2,000 new staff in the country. More recently, tech giants from other parts of the world have been dialling down their Canadian staffing ambitions in the wake of weaker earnings and stock-market turbulence. In May, Meta said it was “slowing its growth” just two months after promising 2,500 hires over five years. Canadian publicly-traded tech firms, scale-ups and startups are also reducing or freezing recruiting.
More recently, tech giants from other parts of the world have been dialling down their Canadian staffing ambitions in the wake of weaker earnings and stock-market turbulence. In May, Meta said it was “slowing its growth” just two months after promising 2,500 hires over five years. Canadian publicly-traded tech firms, scale-ups and startups are also reducing or freezing recruiting.
