Placements at IITs take a beating

DOWNTURN Recruitment dipped sharply within a year

One of every three IITians graduating this year either didn’t find a suitable job or wasn’t found suitable for a job through campus placement, official data show, pointing to shrinking employment opportunities for India’s large pool of engineering talent.

Only 66% of those who made themselves available for campus recruitment landed a job offer in 2016-17, as against 79% in 2015-16 and 78% in 2014-15, according to data made available by IITs to the human resource development (HRD) ministry. Out of 9,104 student in 17 IITs who applied this year, only 6,013 got jobs.

The data for placement was shared by 17 IITs.

There are 75,000 students studying in 23 IITs in the country.

The slide in recruitment from what are considered our premier technical institutes reflects the possible impact of the economic downturn in India as also globally. India’s estimated economic growth has slowed to 7.1% in 2016-17 from 7.9% in the previous year. Larsen & Toubro Ltd, for instance, laid off 14,000 employees during April-September last year, saying it was necessary to stay agile and competitive. Many companies in the manufacturing and construction sectors slashed jobs in November-January to protect their profit margins postdemonetisation. A wave of protectionist steps by countries such as the United States has further hit the services sector, especially IT companies. The top seven IT firms in India are reportedly planning to lay off at least 56,000 engineers.

“There is an increase in the number of IITs but the jobs have

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