Deloitte to hire 50,000 employees in India, evaluates Mangaluru for future expansion

Deloitte plans to hire about 50,000 additional employees in India and is actively evaluating Mangaluru as a future expansion location, signalling the growing role of Tier II cities in the country’s global capability centre (GCC) ecosystem.

Romal Shetty, chief executive officer of Deloitte South Asia, said India remains central to the firm’s global delivery and growth strategy. Speaking at TiEcon Mangaluru 2026 on January 17, Shetty said Deloitte currently employs around 140,000 people in India, accounting for roughly one-fourth of its global workforce.

“We will hire about 50,000 more people,” Shetty said. “We came very close to Mangaluru. Mangaluru has talent. We will come to Mangaluru, no doubt — it is only a question of time.”

Shetty was in conversation with Rohit Bhat, president of TiEcon Mangaluru and founder of 99Games and Robosoft, during the event.

India at the centre of Deloitte’s GCC strategy

Shetty said India continues to dominate the global GCC landscape, both in scale and potential. “India is a powerhouse of GCCs,” he said, noting that around 50% of all global GCCs are located in India. While major metros remain important, he added that future expansion would increasingly come from Tier II and Tier III cities, either through new centres or incremental growth.

According to Shetty, emerging cities offer a combination of cost advantages, talent availability and improving infrastructure, making them attractive for global firms reassessing long-term location strategies.

Mangaluru under consideration

Highlighting Mangaluru’s strengths, Shetty pointed to talent availability and real estate fundamentals, while acknowledging that infrastructure readiness would be critical to attracting large-scale technology and services operations.

He also flagged challenges related to energy and water requirements, particularly for data centres and high-compute facilities, which are becoming integral to modern GCC operations.

Shetty argued that India needs to significantly reduce the time required to establish GCCs. “Opening a GCC can take six months, but it should take only two weeks,” he said, stressing the need for plug-and-play infrastructure and smoother regulatory processes.

He proposed the creation of digital economic zones that integrate GCCs, GPU-based data centres, startups and academic institutions within a single ecosystem, supported by ready infrastructure and coordinated policy support.

Innovation and city-led growth

Drawing comparisons with the United States, Shetty said closer collaboration between universities, corporates and government would be essential to building sustainable innovation ecosystems in India. He also underscored the need for greater investment in research and development.

“You have to innovate for Bharat,” he said, adding that India’s growth story would remain incomplete unless “200 or more cities prosper.”

Deloitte’s hiring plan and interest in cities like Mangaluru underscore a broader shift in India’s services and GCC sector, where growth is increasingly decentralised beyond major metros. As global firms look for scalable, resilient and talent-rich locations, Tier II cities are emerging as the next frontier in India’s technology and professional services expansion.