The big picture of how many students got jobs and how many were unsuccessful during campus placements across all IITs in the country will emerge by the end of May-June.
Every year, news of IIT graduates securing impressive packages makes headlines. However, this time around, engineering students at the country's top IITs are facing a struggle to land good jobs. Despite the placement offices of various IITs inviting a good number of prominent companies for recruitment, the outcome is not as expected, largely due to the slowdown in the tech industry, which is clearly evident.
Tejaswini Pokle, Executive Officer at the IIT Bombay Placement Office, stated in a written response to NDTV about the placement situation, "In the current placement season, 1973 students from IIT Bombay have participated. As of April 4, 2024, 1308 students have received placements out of those who applied for jobs. This means 665 students are still waiting for job placements. Despite efforts for several months, 33.70% of students have not been able to secure jobs."
The officer at the placement office of IIT Bombay told NDTV that this data for 2023-24 is interim because the placement session will continue until June 30, 2024. However, practically, most recruitments are completed by the first week of April. In the previous placement season, out of 1845 applicants at IIT Bombay, 1516 students were successfully placed, meaning nearly 84% were successful in securing jobs, which was the best performance to date.
According to sources, recruitment of master's and PhD students in IITs is progressing slowly, resulting in a lower overall recruitment percentage than expected. This is the situation at most IITs across the country. According to reports, about 40% of students registered with the Office of Career Services at IIT Delhi are still awaiting job placements by the first week of April.
Professor R. Ayothiraman, Placement Incharge of IIT Delhi, told NDTV, "The placement process will continue until the end of this academic season (May). So far, 80% of undergraduate students at IIT Delhi have been placed in various companies. Compared to previous years, this year the number of interested PhD students in placements has increased by 6 times. The career needs of PhD students are different. We are preparing to start a separate placement process for them. There are many other ways for students who were not selected in campus placement to find jobs."
Dr. Nityanand, industry expert and Director, Council for Social Development, told NDTV, "The international economy is not doing well, and recruitment is being affected due to the slowdown in the economies of many major countries. However, the IIT administration has not yet made the complete placement data public. But I think this time, as many foreign companies did not come for IIT campus recruitment as they used to, and the reason is the slowdown in the economies of many major countries."
The big picture of how many students got jobs and how many remained unsuccessful during campus placements across all IITs will emerge by the end of May-June.