Wall Street financial powerhouse Morgan Stanley plans to ramp up hiring in India this year across its global capability centres and client-facing businesses such as investment banking and investment management.

The New York-based company, which has more than 10,000 employees in India across its campuses in cities such as Mumbai and Bengaluru, has been increasing its headcount by about a fifth over the past couple of years. That growth trajectory will continue this year too, Mandell Crawley, global head of HR, Morgan Stanley, told ET.

India is now the second largest location globally for the company after New York and it’s a matter of months before two of the largest locations for Morgan Stanley will be in India – in Mumbai and Bengaluru – Crawley told ET on his first visit to the country. The majority of the additions will be at the firm’s global capability centres in the country.

“We have been compounding at 20% a year for the past couple of years. I anticipate that trend will continue…I don’t see a real need for us to change course,” said Crawley, who has been with the firm for nearly three decades.

The news of job additions comes at a time when global macroeconomic uncertainties have prompted several companies across sectors to adopt a cautious approach in expanding staff rolls.

The global firm’s focus in India is around technology talent, with 30% of the company’s entire tech footprint being in India. That apart, the company also has multiple business units based out of India like operations, finance, legal and compliance, HR operations, internal audit, and firm risk management.

Besides these, Morgan Stanley also hires here for client businesses – investment banking and investment management.

Morgan Stanley has global centers in 10 locations across the world with 22,000 – 23,000 employees and India is about 50% of that.

“India is now larger than all of EMEA with 13% of the firm’s employees based between the two locations in India – Mumbai and Bengaluru,” he said. About 80% of the firm’s employees are millennials.

The company, which has doubled its intake of talent from India’s top management and engineering campuses over the last two years, plans to hire in large numbers this year too.

“We currently have relationships with 100 plus universities in India, (including the top IITs, NITs and IIMs). While we hire students from multiple domains, STEM talent takes precedence in terms of volume, and we believe the India talent landscape will continue to grow,” said Crawley.

On the impact of the global macroeconomic uncertainty on talent acquisition plans of global companies in India, Crawley said: “I am not sure the slowdown of growth is going to translate into a substantial spike in unemployment and even if that is true in markets like the US and Europe, I think India is a little bit different. Even as the world may slow down from an activity perspective, I don’t see that necessarily happening in India.”