In what seems to be an unbelievable plot twist of the 21st century, engineering as a career choice has been declining and paving way for streams like Business Management and Economics. As of today, 48% of seats in colleges vacant and there’s a massive scarcity of jobs for engineers among other alarming concerns.
5 Trends That Are Killing Engineering:
1. Vacant Seats
The Sunday Guardian reported,
“According to the latest information provided by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, out of the approved total intake of 30.93 lakh seats, only 15.96 lakh students enrolled for different engineering courses in 2015-16.”
A news report by Times of India, states that in the last two years the number of engineering institutes in Telangana went from 404 to 377 and over 50 institutes have opted out of the JNTU affiliation process.
Hindustan Times states that Maharashtra is facing a similar battle wherein 45% of the seats have gone vacant, due to which a number of institutes were forced to shut down courses or close shop.
A similar yet less stark pattern can be seen in Tamil Nadu where 10 engineering universities have not applied for affiliation to the Anna University. Deccan Chronicle states that students are not opting for engineering due to lack of placements and universities are shutting down as they are unable to sustain themselves without admissions.
2. IIT’s Shutting Courses
In a shocking step, the Ministry of HRD has ordered scrap centres and courses of all the centrally-funded technical institutions (CFTI) including IIT’s which are either not very popular or have seen a decrease in the number of the applicants reports Times of India.
“All CFTIs, which are participating in joint counsellings have been asked to review the position of vacant seats in the last three years and to revise the number of seats in each discipline after considering employment opportunities, national requirements, available infrastructure and scope for future,” said Mahendra Nath Pandey.
3. Campus Recruitments
Companies like Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Cognizant and HCL have dropped their hirings by 40%. 2016 saw the recruitment of 60,000 engineers compared to last years where it was 100,000.
A recent report by Business Standard states that fresh engineers may find it difficult to land jobs due to new hiring policies at tech companies. Earlier, young graduates were hired and trained to handle projects for global clients but since most of these entry-level jobs can be automated, IT companies no longer require entry-level graduates.
At this rate, what chance do ‘non-employable’ engineers have? A study done by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) confirms that only 40% of the engineering graduates are employable. Out of this, how many of them actually get the job is still debatable.
4. Change In Corporate Workforce
Cisco announced a 7% reduction of its global workforce in 2017, while IBM revealed plans of 5000 job cuts. The reason behind both these companies cutting down employees lies in reinvesting money in priority areas such as the Internet of Things and cloud computing. Similarly, Microsoft has decided to cut over 2800 jobs as it planned to wind up its smartphone business.
5. Lay-Offs Due to Automation
A joint study conducted by Oxford University and Deloitte predict that 850,000 jobs will be lost due to automation, redundancy or disintermediation.
The first company to have started the trend in India is Cognizant where it is likely to layoff 6000-10,000 of its non-performing, redundant employees. These layoffs are a part of the appraisal process ever since digitization and automation have become the latest trend.
Likely to follow suit in terms of layoffs are companies like Infosys, Wipro and TCS says a news report from Hindustan Times.
On a brighter note, unique research conducted by The Future of Jobs by World Economic Forum states that globally, 2.1 million jobs will be created to fit in the needs of specialized jobs in the field of engineering, architecture, and computers.
Monika Bakshi
-
Monika Bakshihttps://www.univariety.com/blog/author/univariety/
-
Monika Bakshihttps://www.univariety.com/blog/author/univariety/
-
Monika Bakshihttps://www.univariety.com/blog/author/univariety/
-
Monika Bakshihttps://www.univariety.com/blog/author/univariety/
1 Comment
Hi Neha ty for updating me with the current situation around…Well I am really looking forward to do the course…But would definitely visit the branch in banjara hills n get the detailed information………,….. Regards Payal Joshi