The $150 billion Indian information technology sector, which was once India’s largest organized job creator, is reluctant to hire. Let alone creating jobs, many companies in the sector are choosing to not even fill the vacancies left.
The reasons are simple: slow revenue growth and adoption of newer technologies, such as cloud computing and automation platforms, have started replacing engineers.
So how does the engineer survive and get placed in such a tough environment?
There are almost 1.5 million engineers who pass out every year, however only 20 -30% manage to land a job. Why is there a gap here? Why do we have huge skilled workforce unemployed? We conducted some interviews across the colleges to understand why there has been a dip in the placement numbers for engineering students.
A placement officer of a renowned college in Delhi had this to say when we put across the question to him. The placement officer attributed the low placement numbers to the slow economic growth post demonetisation and lack of relevance between the market requirements and student’s skills. A lot of talk has been going around replacing human tasks with artificial intelligence and automated processes. The placement officer also talked about how the universities are trying to revamp their curriculum to ensure the students are up to date with the market demands.
According to the HRD ministry, India has 6,214 engineering and technology institutions which take 2.9 million students. Around 1.5 million engineers look for placements every year, but the outdated higher education curriculum in India is becoming an obstacle between them getting a job.
So how does an engineer become relevant in the current market context?
Though it’s tough to point out the right path to become employable, a student passing out of college can do the following to ensure he/she is relevant to the market.
- Learn about new technologies entering the market.
- Enhance Soft Skills
- Work on technical skills by developing small projects of their own
- Awareness about market requirements
These are not the sure shot keys to success but would lead to a way in ensuring an engineer is employable.