AUSTIN, Texas – General Motors is hiring software developers, project managers, database experts, business analysts and other information technology professionals to staff the first of several new IT Innovation Centers in the United States intended to drive breakthrough ideas into GM vehicles and business processes globally.

“We want IT to keep up with the imagination of our GM business partners, and to do that, we plan to rebalance the employment model over the next three years so that the majority of our IT work is done by GM employees focused on extending new capabilities that further enable our business,” GM Chief Information Officer Randy Mott said.

Austin was chosen for an Innovation Center because the city already has people with the skills GM is seeking - 46,000, according to the May 2011 Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment Report.

“We anticipate hiring as many as 500 new GM employees in Austin,” Mott said. “We look to the Innovation Centers to design and deliver IT that drives down the cost of ongoing operations while continuously increasing the level and speed at which innovative products and services are available to GM customers.

“The next generation of IT workers, the talented visionaries we want contributing at the Innovation Center, are being trained at top computer science schools in Texas and surrounding states,” Mott said. “The IT Innovation Centers are critical to our overall IT business strategy and transformation.”

GM already has more than 4,500 employees in Texas, including about 1,800 at GM Financial locations. Approximately 2,500 people build Chevrolet, GMC and Cadillac SUVs in Arlington, where a recently announced third shift will start in the first quarter of 2013. In addition, a new $200 million stamping plant is under construction that will create or retain approximately 180 jobs. Two Customer Call Centers are based in the state, and GM is a corporate partner in the Pecan Street sustainable living project in Austin.