Texas firm to create 153 jobs in Northern Ireland over four years

A US firm is to set up a technology engineering centre in Northern Ireland, creating 153 jobs over four years.

Founded in Austin, Texas, Workrise matches skilled labour contractors to companies that require staff for time-bound projects.

Invest NI offered the company £994,500 towards the creation of the jobs.

Economy Minister Gordon Lyons said they would be "high-quality jobs, all paying salaries above the average annual wage for the private sector".

"With a hybrid-working approach in place, people from all over Northern Ireland will be able to apply, and there are exciting opportunities on offer for graduates," he added.

"Overall the project will contribute £6.8m in wages to the local economy once all the roles are in place with benefits of the investment being felt across Northern Ireland."

Workrise chief executive and co-founder Xuan Yong said they were attracted to Northern Ireland because of its skills base.

"To achieve our growth plans we are expanding and centralising our software engineering function," he added.

"We selected Northern Ireland as the location for this new centre based on the high-quality software engineers with industry skills, along with a strong pipeline of graduates from your excellent universities.

"This, along with the practical and financial support from Invest NI, made Northern Ireland a very attractive location."

Kevin Holland, chief executive, Invest NI, said: "Northern Ireland has a well-developed and growing ICT sector.

"Workrise plans to create the 153 jobs over the next four years, with an initial focus on establishing the engineering team.

"It is currently recruiting software engineering roles including Backend, Frontend and DevOps with circa 30 staff in place so far, working remotely across Northern Ireland.

"Later, recruitment will turn to product management and programme management roles with ultimately plans in place to establish a central office in Belfast."