IT winter freezes engg schools

The deep cuts in India’s technology companies are hurting tier 2 and 3 engineering schools which depend on them for campus placements. Basic coding skills are passe, with rising demand for roles in newer technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data, cloud and cybersecurity.

According to rough industry estimates, this year, placement of students from these engineering colleges is likely to see a drop of 35-40% compared to the past year. On a macro level also, IT services companies like TCS, Infosys, HCL Technologies and Wipro hired 66% less employees in FY23 than a year back.

With the talent market returning to the pre-pandemic times with FY23 net addition numbers by these firms being closer to that of FY21, tier 2 and 3 engineering colleges are turning to product-based companies to place their students. However, the problem is that such companies do not hire in large numbers as IT services companies do. For instance, around 60% of students who pass out from these colleges, generally get hired by services-based companies.

D Ranganath, dean placement, RV College of Engineering (RVCE), Bengaluru, said, “Since last two years, the service based companies’ hiring numbers from campuses are falling 10% every year. We also expect a fall and delay in the recruitment drive for the 2024 batch”.

Sidharth Agarwal, director of Spectrum Talent Management, said, “The IT sector has been going through a period of transition, and we are seeing a shift towards more contract-based employment and upskilling of existing employees. This has resulted in a slowdown in the hiring of freshers.”

According to him, compared to 2022, new job openings for freshers in the IT sector, have dipped by almost 20% this year. “Many IT services companies like Wipro have not visited our campus this year because of overhiring done earlier. Cognizant, DXC Technology, Capgemini have reduced their hiring numbers for 2023 batch compared to 2022. Cognizant, which hired about 350 in 2022, hired only 100 in 2023. Similarly, DXC Technology, that hired 250 earlier, hired about 100 in 2023,” a placement and training officer of a Karnataka-based private university, said.

He added that the drop in placement at IT services companies has been somewhat compensated with hiring from other industries like banking and FMCG, but the numbers are very low as these industries don’t need very high manpower.

Savitha Rani M, training and placement officer, Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bengaluru, said that entry-level jobs are getting automated and students need to upgrade their skills to get hired in niche areas, where there are openings.

Sunil C, CEO of TeamLease Digital, said that the decline in campus hiring has resulted in traffic surge to one of its job portal, Freshersworld.com. “We are seeing an increase of 20-22% traffic on our website and this trend will further increase from the month of June,” he said.

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Human resources placement experts said that companies have identified upskilling as the key to market competitiveness and prefer professionals who are well versed with technologies like blockchain, cybersecurity, AI and ML. Due to the rapid pace of technological advancement and increased globalisation, the job market has become quite dynamic while being responsive to global market turbulence.

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