Job market hotting up once again

Updated on: Monday, January 04, 2010

The fear of global economic recession is still in the air. But the current market trends indicate that the future of engineering graduates will not be as murky as widely feared.

The recession has had an impact on all campuses irrespective of their strength and credibility, but not in a uniform manner. While some campuses saw recruiting companies turning their back on them, others witnessed a slump in the number of companies visiting in the last two years.

The change in the campus recruitment pattern has prompted all stakeholders to explore new options. While some companies chose to visit campuses in groups, certain campuses formed exclusive committees to study and monitor the impact of recession and to counsel the students on the basis of current trends. Students too began to show a shift in their attitude to employment.

More and more engineering graduates have begun to opt for management studies in the wake of the recession. “Unlike previous years, we have quite a large number of engineering graduates for our MBA courses this year,” said V.K. Janardhanan, Placement Officer and Head of the Department of Management Studies, Calicut University.

Up to 40 per cent of the MBA students in five centres of Calicut University have come from engineering background. This, according to Dr. Janardhanan, is an indication of the impact the engineering campuses suffered in the wake of the economic slowdown.

But the thousands of engineering undergraduates on our campuses need not lose heart. Things have started looking brighter for them.

A close look at the National Institute of Technology, Calicut, one of the premier engineering institutions in the country and the best in Kerala, will tell them that the engineering job market is still bright and potent. But listen to the expert advice: be good in your core area. NITC, the most preferred engineering campus in Kerala for recruiters, too was not spared by the recession. Unlike the previous years, when 100 per cent placement used to be recorded in the first two quarter of the academic year, NITC witnessed only 60 per cent student placement in the current academic year till December.

The reason for this slump, according to NITC authorities, is the cautious and slow path chosen to tread by the companies. NITC has formed a panel to monitor the employment scenario and advise the students accordingly.

NITC Director G.R.C. Reddy told The Hindu-EducationPlus that the job market was not as badly affected as everyone thought. “This slowness is temporary. Every sector has been hit as there has been less industrial activity, and less rate of growth. But what is interesting is that core engineering areas have not suffered at all,” said Prof.

Reddy, instilling hope in large number of engineering students.

According to Prof. Reddy, core engineering areas remain evergreen and people have begun to return to their core sectors. This shift, according to some engineering experts, has been a positive result given by the economic meltdown. The suffering of Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) sector in the wake of the recession has come as a blessing in disguise for all core engineering areas, including computer science. When 92 per cent of computer science students have already found placements this year, only 41 per cent of electronic and electrical engineering (EEE) students of NITC have been placed. This is an indication that IT as a core sector has not suffered.

“With one more quarter to go in the current academic year, we are hopeful to get more than 90 per cent placement,” said Prof. Reddy. “Our economy has started giving symptoms of picking up. We have the habit of saving money, always. And it is this peculiar habit that saved India when other countries suffered,” he said. Even when other campuses suffered during the worst period of recession in 2008-2009, NITC achieved 100 per cent placement. About 50 per cent of NITC students had got their “dream jobs” in the last three years; 50 per cent of them got more than one job.

A close examination of the admissions and placements of NITC in the last three years indicate that students did not prefer ITES. Instead they preferred their core engineering areas, be it computer science, mechanical, chemical, civil, electrical, or electronics. T.K. Suresh Babu, head of the Department of Training and Placement, NITC, said the shift in preference for core engineering was evident for the last three years. “This phenomenon did not limit to NITC. It was there in all other NITs,” he said. The other engineering colleges in Kerala too have witnessed this shift. Mechanical and civil branches of engineering have become the most preferred courses in some colleges, including M.E.S. College of Engineering, Kuttippuram. V.H. Abdul Salam, principal of M.E.S. College of Engineering, said IT suffered a huge blow in preference among students.Although IT students had got larger pay than the students of other streams earlier, now everyone is on a par in payment, said Prof. Salam.

Job market hotting up once again

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