Hitachi Wants to Hire a Lot in the US Despite Layoffs in Big Tech

Significant job cuts in big tech make the United States a key hiring pool for Hitachi, with the Japanese company saying it sees “a big opportunity” and is also seeking acquisitions in Silicon Valley and beyond of the.

In an interview with the Financial Times, chief executive Keiji Kojima said fierce cost-cutting campaigns at Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft and other US technology groups over the past year would help the industrial conglomerate as ‘it’s going on a multibillion-dollar recruiting spree to grow its digital services.

“It’s a tailwind for us,” Kojima said. “We want to hire very good people among those who have been made redundant. Of course, we have to be very selective because the salaries of people hired by these companies are usually high,” he added, calling it a “great opportunity.”

Kojima said the company is also actively seeking new acquisition targets in the US in cloud services, following its $9.5 billion purchase of GlobalLogic, a Silicon Valley software engineering company. , in 2021.

Hitachi has set aside 500 billion yen ($3.7 billion) to invest in its digital strategy for the three years to March 2025 and plans to hire 30,000 digital employees during that time. GlobalLogic already hires about 1,000 people each month, primarily in Eastern Europe and Latin America, and recently acquired two companies in Romania and Uruguay.

The aggressive spending plan follows a more than decade-long process in which the sprawling Japanese conglomerate became an IT and infrastructure specialist, merging and selling 22 publicly traded subsidiaries long considered sacred cows.

Hitachi used funds raised from offloading non-core business to buy GlobalLogic and expand its Lumada software business. He also spent $6.4 billion to buy a nearly 80% stake in ABB’s power grid business in 2020, which he then fully acquired.

“From there, we will make investments to grow organically, but will include mergers and acquisitions to accelerate that growth,” Kojima said, adding that the company would also be doing share buybacks.

Hitachi’s chief said the “conglomerate discount” often applied to sprawling Japanese companies had shrunk as a result of its restructuring efforts.

In its latest disposal, Kojima said the group plans to sell a stake to a global private equity fund in Hitachi Astemo, which was created through a landmark merger of auto parts subsidiaries at Hitachi and Honda. The unit, two-thirds of which is owned by Hitachi, will aim to list its shares in the next two to three years after seeking an investor in the fund in fiscal 2023.

“With electric cars in full swing around the world, the company will not be able to survive without further capital investment and research and development,” he said.