Consumers Energy headquarters in Jackson.Consumers Energy is hiring an India-based company to do information technology work but promises that the foreign company will bring jobs to Michigan.
The Jackson-based utility is announcing today that officials are negotiating a contract with HCL Technologies, a technology company that employs 79,000 workers in 31 countries.
As part of the contract, HCL will build an IT development center in Michigan where employees from the company will work. No Consumers Energy employees will lose their jobs.
“It’s very exciting,” said David Mengebier, senior vice president and chief compliance officer of CMS Energy and Consumers Energy. “We are going to see a net increase in jobs in Michigan.”
Currently, Consumers Energy has about 500 full-time IT employees and 260 IT consultants who do contract work.
The full-time employees mostly do maintenance and support work for the company’s internal computer system, and contractors mostly do more high-end work, like developing online applications and design work for the company’s Smart Grid technology.
With the new plan, full-time employees will be retrained to do the premium work and employees from HCL will do maintenance and support work at the development center.
Officials will be meeting with HCL this week to work out more details of the contract. They declined to say how much the contract will be worth and are trying to decide when the development center will be built, where it will be located and how many employees HCL will send to Michigan.
Some work will still be outsourced to India, Mengebier said.
Consumers officials were conscious of the perception that they might send work out of the country. In June, one of the company’s officers was in India interviewing vendors at the same time CMS Energy President and CEO John Russell stood with Gov. Rick Snyder, announcing the company’s commitment to increase spending in Michigan.
Consumers Energy has pledged to spend $250 million in the next five years with Michigan suppliers, in addition to the $2 billion Consumers currently spends annually, as part of its “Michigan preferred” spending program.
Snyder in June announced an effort dubbed Pure Michigan Business Connect, in which Michigan companies commit to spending money with other state suppliers to help boost economic growth.
Last month, Consumers Energy reported it has paid out $2.8 million and awarded $71 million in multi-year contracts to 17 Michigan companies since joining Pure Michigan Business Connect.