50%-70% Drop in Campus Placement at Private Engineering Institutes

Placement at private engineering institutes has tanked by 50-70% as companies facing macroeconomic challenges, especially in information technology, are hiring judiciously.

Some of the institutes told The Economic Times that they reworked their plans. Santanil Dasgutpa, senior director of BML Munjal University’s career guidance development centre, said the institute has adopted a wait-and-watch approach.

“Companies are hiring judiciously and the sentiment is low for the fresher recruitment drive,” said Dasgupta.

Amid a slowdown in spending by clients, IT companies, which were usually the main campus recruiters and hired several freshers in the last two years expecting good growth, have cut recruitment.

Even recruitment in other streams like automobile, aeronautics, biotechnology, biomedical science, electronics and communications, and electronics instrumentation and control has either decreased or is flat.

“Last year, 63% of students had been placed by this time (overall 95%). This year, 20-25% of students have been placed so far,” said Dasgupta. The BML Munjal University’s batch strength is 175.

The scene at other private institutes is the same. “Hardly, 30% of the students have been placed so far,” said Anjani Kumar Bhatnagar, deputy director of the placement cell of Amity University. “By this time last year, 60% of the batch had been placed.”

Amity University has decided to target “companies that are niche”. “Even if they are not niche, these companies need to have their operations in India because these are the companies that are recruiting these days”, added Bhatnagar.

Saravanababu J, senior placement director at Koneru Lakshamaiah University, described the placement situation as dull. “The campus placement this year is “not as impressive” as the previous year. IT services companies are not hiring this year. This created a big impact in the placement figures.”

The university, which has more than 2,000 students in the engineering stream, had reached 80% of campus placement (2023 batch). “This year (2024 batch), we have reached 35% in the engineering stream,” he added.

At Galgotias University, with a batch size of 2,000, about 45% of final-year students had been placed by the first week of November 2022. Placement has sunk to 38% despite campus recruitment beginning a month earlier.

“Companies are coming this year, but they are picking up fewer students,” said Manisha Chaudhry, placement director at Galgotias University. “For example, an MNC specialising in IT services and consulting hired 120-130 students last year. This time around, they hired 30 students.”

The industry is cautious in hiring freshers, according to Sharda University pro-vice-chancellor Parma Nand. “There’s a 5%-7% drop in the number of students placed this time of the year as compared with a year ago.”

Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology’s (TIET) chief industry engagement officer Ajayinder Singh Jawanda said that compared with last year, the number of IT companies has been less to start with as “some of the leading recruiters of last year have delayed their hiring by a few months or have declined to come this year”.

Placement at TIET started in the middle of August. “The numbers hired this year by many are less due to over-hiring last year and economic reasons. Many new companies, especially start-ups, are coming this year,” said Jawanda.

“Despite the effects of wars and post-pandemic economic upheavals, placement is expected to do well this year although delayed,” added Jawanda, who is cautiously optimistic about placement despite the economic headwinds.

Recruitment in other streams is also less. Riya Mariam Babu, a mechanical engineering student at Amity, is one of the four in a batch of 35 students who have secured jobs. Campus placement for core engineering courses has only just begun. “Placement tends to pick up during the eighth semester (January) after companies have concluded their recruitment drives at government colleges,” she said.