The first day of recruitment at IIT-Bombay saw just 150 job offers from companies — the lowest number in half a decade. The first day offers made on Dec 1 are often the most coveted, and students look forward to getting placed on the first day with the most lucrative of packages and designations.
But the turnout this year was the lowest in five years, with the finance and consulting sectors facing a sharp decline in terms of jobs. According to Times Of India, the number of US companies recruiting from India has also declined.
Even though the number offers and placements have almost evened out as per the previous years’ records through the course of the placement period that started on Dec 1, the fact that the first day itself did not attract as many companies and offers is cause enough to worry for students.
Students of coding and core engineering did not suffer much but finance and consultancy sectors were severely hit.
A student tells TOI that bigger brands/companies with the bigger packages have cut down on the number of recruitments, as compared to previous years.
According to a report in Business Insider, there has been an increase in the number of recruiters participating in the IIT campus placements, but not in the number of jobs offers, which have in fact seen a 10 percent decline overall.
IIT Kharagpur also saw offers fall from 500 to 450 in the first 5 days.
Comparatively, the IIT Kanpur campus fared a little better than the Mumbai campus, with 315 offers being made in the first three days of placement as opposed to 280 last year. IIT Roorkee also claimed that there has not been a decline in offers since last year. IIT Guwahati saw 200 offers instead of 150 last year.
However, the increase in the number of IITs is being touted as one of the main reasons for the disproportionate decrease of recruitment offers fper recruiter. With so many students to place in 23 IIT campuses, many are getting left out as companies cannot visit so many IITs.
The BI report also states that a shift in package trends for the better have also led to a cut in offers. Even PSU (Public Sector Undertakings) are offering higher packages that they did earlier. The change in recruitment plans of individual companies is thus a major cause for the decline.
The worst hit sector however was that of international placements. There over was a considerable drop in international placements/recruitments from across the IIT campuses, according to an Economic Times report. IIT Roorkee had 77 percent decline, around 54 percent in case of IIT Madras, 44 per cent in IIT Kharagpur and 18 per cent in IIT Guwahati.
Increasingly protectionist nature of current international trade discussions (Brexit/Europe’s visa regulations/US’s anti-immigration debate) might be a reason for the decline. Growth of Indian companies and the Indian market might also be a factor that retained recruitments within the country.
Feature Image Source: Reuters
