HCL Technologies opens new centre in Colombo, to hire 3,000 people
IT services major HCL Technologies on Tuesday said it has opened a global development centre in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and expects to hire over 3,000 people in the next few years for the facility.
The new centre was inaugurated by Sri Lanka Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Gopal Baglay via a virtual ceremony, a statement said.
HCL”s office in Colombo will have world-class infrastructure, multi-layered data and physical security protocols, and high-end systems to support its global customer base. The company will primarily focus on offering next-generation solutions to serve major blue-chip organisations, it added.
The office in Colombo which currently has a seating capacity for more than 650 employees, already has over 100 new HCL local recruits. By the end of November 2020, HCL hopes to further add over 600 seats at this centre, it said.
“HCL plans to deploy about 3,000 people in the coming three to five years and of which 1,500 employees will start working in Sri Lanka in the next 18 months,” it added.
HCL will also implement its Work Integrated Education Program to foster growth by actively cooperating with local ICT and engineering institutions in order to develop and train the local talent pool.
“We have already hired our first set of employees in the journey and we hope to take this number to over 3,000 people in the coming three years…We are very positive of the growth prospects we foresee in the country and looking forward to bringing in global opportunities to the local communities in Sri Lanka,” HCL Technologies President and CEO C Vijayakumar said.
For freshers, HCL will focus on hiring A Level, Higher National Diploma (HND) students through skills training and hiring program, it said adding that the company will also invite Sri Lanka expats to come back home and work with the firm.
HCL noted that Sri Lanka is accelerating into an emerging destination of choice for the global ITO and BPM market, and is among the best destinations for providing off-shore services for IT-enabled service as well as services related to finance and accounting, legal, insurance, banking, and telecommunications.
HCL had joined hands with the Board of Investment (BOI) of Sri Lanka in February 2020 to launch its local entity — HCL Technologies Lanka (Private) Limited and set up its first delivery centre in the region. Through this entity, HCL will provide services to global clients in the areas of applications and system integration services, and infrastructure Services.
