Why IIT placements are looking gloomier than ever this season

Think of Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) graduates and the one thought that pops into everyone’s heads is that they are guaranteed a high-paying job. However, that may not be the case, at least this placement season.

A report published by the Times of India has revealed that IIT some students are being offered annual packages below Rs 10 lakh. Moreover, fewer students are being picked for recruitment, making several wonder what’s going wrong at India’s premier education institutes.

Here’s what we know of the situation.

Smaller pay packages, fewer placements

A Times of India report has stated that many of the IIT students receiving placement offers this season have been given a package of Rs 10-15 lakh per annum. And if IIT students are to be believed, this is way below the average.

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One IIT-Bombay student told the daily, “From coaching classes to start-ups, some have recently been picked for salary packages of Rs 60,000 to Rs 80,000 in phase 2.”

At IIT-Kharagpur, organisations such as Spectrum Technologies and Startoon Labs have offered relatively modest salary packages ranging from Rs 3.6 lakh to Rs 6 lakh annually for trainee engineers.

And at IIT-Delhi, the situation is even more dire. An RTI reply revealed that salaries for IIT students are stagnating. As per the RTI response, which The Hindu published, in 2021-22, Rs 23.8 lakh was the average Cost To the Company (CTC). In 2022-23, the average salary was Rs 21.9 lakh (CTC) and this year, it was Rs 19.5 lakh (CTC).

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Compare this to the year 2020 when on an average job offers began at Rs 20 lakh an annum.

Besides a smaller pay package, IIT graduates are also having to contend with fewer placements. For instance, at IIT-Delhi of the 1,814 students registered with Office of Career Services (OCS), 1,083 have secured jobs, leaving approximately 40 per cent yet to find employment.

Moreover, an RTI application revealed that 22 per cent students have been unplaced in the last five years.

A similar picture is also emerging in IIT-Kanpur. Reports have emerged IIT Kanpur witnessed an estimated placement of 69 per cent this year, compared to 91 per cent and 90 per cent in 2023 and 2022 respectively.

That’s not all. Earlier, it was reported that over 30 per cent at IIT Bombay had not bagged jobs. The same report also revealed that IITs in Kanpur, Madras and Delhi were also struggling.

Reasons for smaller pay packages

But what’s the reason behind this phenomenon? According to Suhas Joshi, director of IIT Indore, the global economic slowdown is to blame.

“The global economic slowdown has significantly impacted the campus placements for the 2024 graduating batch of IIT Indore. The reduced hiring numbers of recruiters compared to the previous year have resulted in a challenging placement season,” he was quoted as saying to Times of India.

One economist speaking on the same, expressed concern over it. Eminent labour economist Santosh Mehrotra told The Hindu that this questions the high growth rate and the claim that the new economy is generating a lot of jobs. “ Rating agencies are trying to sell this narrative to their multinational clients for increasing their own business. Even in the organised high paying sectors, jobs are not growing,” he told The Hindu.

Internationally, the IT sector has seen several job cuts and an overall slowdown. As former IIT Delhi director and VC of BITS Pilani, V Ramgopal Rao, was quoted as telling Indian Express: “A lot of hiring took place during the COVID, and they are all going a little bit slow this time. They think there might be a recession and some slowdown in the economy.”

What comes next

And in an effort to counter this situation, the IITs are taking steps. For instance, IIT Indore is tapping into alumni networks and is broadening its pool of potential employers, including PSUs.

Rajib Maity, chairperson of the Career Development Centre at IIT-Kharagpur told Economic Times, “We are already in touch with companies to understand their set of requirements and whether they can find a match among our students.”

IIT-BHU has also come up with a gameplan for the next round of placements. “We are planning to increase the spectrum of companies by plunging into the PSU and startup sector to maximise the number of offers,” Sushant K Shrivastava, coordinator of its training and placement cell, told Economic Times.

With inputs from agencies