Cisco is out recruiting 100 graduate-level engineering staff right now as part of a five-year expansion of R&D at its two Toronto locations and its location in Ottawa.
"We'd like to bring in as many people as quickly as we can," says Paul Howarth, the company's director of strategic initiatives. "We're out on campus now, hiring up to 100 people for this year."
In a
recent announcement, the provincial government heralded its investment of $25 million in Cisco under a memorandum of understanding signed last year. The agreement will see 300 new jobs created in Ontario—a doubling of Cisco's R&D staff—with roughly half of those new hires working in the company's Scarborough and Liberty Village offices, according to Howarth. The move is a bounce back for Cisco, which had trimmed its Canadian workforce by five per cent last year as it focussed on its core activities in response to the global economic downturn.
Howarth says that the investment from the province is a key factor in the multinational company's decision to expand here. The favourable corporate tax regime alongside Ontario's stable economy are also factors.
"Aside from that, the key thing is access to talent. Toronto is a hotbed for software development. It may not be well known as such, but it is," he says, citing the concentration of top-tier universities in the area.
Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Paul Howarth, Director of Strategic Initiatives, Cisco