Canadian multinational technology companies are adding thousands of employees to their payrolls this year, a sign of an improving environment for the sector in Canada.
“Our business is cooking on all cylinders,” said Bill Morris, Canada manager for Accenture Ltd. of Hamilton, Bermuda. Accenture, which provides technology outsourcing, consulting and integration services, had 3,800 employees in Canada in 2003, and will finish this year with more than 5,000.
IBM Canada Ltd. of Markham, Ont., is also hiring at a brisk pace, mostly in software development, research, and integration and consulting. IBM Canada has already hired 600 new workers this year and will hire another 600 before the end of the year. IBM Canada employs about 20,000.
Mr. Morris said his company and some others are benefiting from a debate in the United States about ‘offshoring,' the trend to hire lower-paid information technology employees in countries like India and Romania. While Canadian wages for comparable jobs are much higher than in some Asian and former East bloc countries, they are still lower than U.S. wages. Moreover, U.S. firms hiring Canadians suffer less political backlash than those that hire further afield.
“We are seeing that. There's lower risk for our U.S.-based clients from a political-risk standpoint and a currency-exchange standpoint,” Mr. Morris said.
A study published earlier this year by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC concluded Canada has and can build on advantages as a so-called ‘nearshore' outsourcing provider to U.S. and European firms.
“Our overall labour costs put Canada midway between the U.S. and India, and we have other advantages like geographic proximity to the U.S. market,” said Robert Scott of PwC in Toronto.
David Akin is a CTV correspondent and a contributing writer to The Globe and Mail.
