Crisis in Engineering Education: IT loses sheen as mass recruiter

The Information Technology sector is fast losing its sheen as a mass recruiter, with numbers declining by the year.

Infosys’ net employee addition declined by more than half to 6,320 in 2016-17 as against 17,857 the corresponding year. Tata Consultancy Services’ net employee addition declined to 20,093, from 22,576.

Companies are increasing their employee-utilisation rate to get more out of existing employees. For instance, Infosys’ employee-utilisation rate increased to 78.2 per cent for the fiscal ended March 31, 2017 as against 75 per cent the previous year. This means, employees are contributing more to the company, thereby reducing the need for more intake.

The picture is not rosy for engineering graduates looking for a job in the IT industry, as companies are emphasising on skilling, re-skilling and multi-tasking, over increased intake.

While releasing the 2016-17 financial results, Ajoy Mukherjee, Executive Vice-President and Global Head - Human Resources, TCS, said: “Our focus is on upgrading the digital quotient of TCS employees. At the end of FY2017, over 200,000 employees gained over 500,000 new digital competencies and 1.1 million certifications.”

Boz Hristov, Professional Services Senior Analyst of US-based research firm Technology Business Research, said with the advent of Cloud, “as-a-service”-based delivery and automation, vendors will begin to prioritise calibre over scale. Training, re-skilling and up-skilling existing resources will become the norm.

Binod Rangadore Hampapur, EVP and Global Head - Talent and Technology Operations, Infosys, said the industry is witnessing a change in hiring patterns with unconventional, high-value graduates with differential skills likely to become more attractive.

The future is automation, and it is essential to have good software skills together with a proper education. The company is keen on hiring people with very focussed and differentiated skills in India. The main skills in the newer areas are digital, analytics, cyber security or any new technology. It is a combination of things, such as recruiting people with skills, and re-training and re-skilling the existing workforce, he said.

Infosys has an industry-academia partnership programme called Campus Connect that aims at raising employability of India’s engineering students. Through Campus Connect, it shares best practices with engineering colleges, to align the needs of the institutions, faculty and students with those of the IT industry.

Krishnakumar Natarajan, co-founder Mindtree, said there is a major crisis confronting engineering education in the country. The IT industry used to add around 25,000 direct jobs for every $1 billion of business. With the effect of automation, artificial intelligence and machine-learning, the number of jobs/$1 billion in revenue will be lower. But the absolute quantum of jobs will be high and hence, the industry will continue to be one of the largest and most attractive recruiters.

Supply is going to be higher than demand, not because the demand has gone down but because capacity has been added indiscriminately, he said.