About 50 percent of the 14,000 techies of Wipro Ltd in the US were Americans

Bengaluru, June 28 :  About 50 per cent or 7,000 of the 14,000 techies of Wipro Ltd in the US were Americans, said the global software major on Wednesday.

"Locals form 50 per cent (7,000) of our 14,000 workforce in the US, including 1,600 engineers hired during the last six months," said the IT major in a statement.

With US clients contributing about 60 per cent to its software export revenue ($7.7 billoin in 2016-17), the outsourcing firm had invested $2 billion to set up 40 facilities in 23 states across North America over the past decade, most of them in proximity to its clients.

"We have hired 3,000 locals in the last fiscal (2016-17), attracting and nurturing local talent to drive innovation and help transform clients' businesses into digital enterprises," said the statement.

Of the total workfoce, about 1,000 techies each are located in California, Florida, Georgia and Texas, where its US office has set up next-generation delivery centres.

Asserting that it was focused on creating jobs in the US as part of its strategy to harness local talent, the company said it would continue to recruit from top universities to build on the momentum of hiring locally in North America.

"About 300 of our largest employers and innovators in the US are our clients, which also hire for lateral or senior positions," noted the statement.

Reiterating Wipro's commitment to the local communities, Chief Executive Officer Abidali Z. Neemuchwala said the company was investing in building STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) capabilities in the US through teacher development programmes in the school districts of Boston, Dallas and New Jersey as talent was the bedrock of its success in a competitive market.

"Building local talent pool is a part of our culture and values to engage and contribute to the communities we operate out of, both in the US and the world over where we do business," said Neemuchwala in the statement.

To attract and hire next generation talent, Wipro has also forged ties with local universities and leveraged a hub model to recruit graduates from University of Texas at Austin, University of Texas at Dallas, University of Houston, Rice University, University of North Texas (UNT) and other colleges for its delivery centre in Dallas.

The company recently opened two multi-client delivery centers to create advanced digital offerings at Mountain View in California and another at Farmington Hills in Michigan and hired mostly local talent to offer engineering services to its clients in the automotive segment.

"The new centers provide clients with speed-to-market, access to new and emerging technologies and help create an environment to foster incremental innovation," the statement added.