The effects of automation on jobs has come to be most visible in the 2023-24 campus placements season across engineering colleges including the top-ranking Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and even some of the top tech colleges in the private sector with recruitment being slashed for pure software roles and manufacturing firms instead leading the hiring process across many campuses.
According to placement team executives in some of these institutes, the extensive use of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) has created a shift in industry-hiring, which was already shadowed by the global economic slowdown in the tech sector over the past year.
Across IITs, including the premier first-generation institutes, a section of students from the graduating batch of 2024 has been left out of campus placements, which is in its last leg and in most institutes will end latest by June 30, before the new session begins.
AI Replacing Entry-level Coding Jobs
“AI as a concept is not new, but it’s application in the new age has upgraded vastly and probably, post-pandemic, this was the first academic session when its effects on campus recruitment were most visible. Hiring for pure software profiles like those for coding has reduced, for example, if four students were being hired for these roles, only two are hired this year since many basic level algorithms can be created by AI itself. However, when the operations of a company expand, it will require more people for the same job, so it will balance itself out in the long run,” said Prof SK Shrivastava, placement-in-charge, IIT-BHU.
It’s firms from the manufacturing sector, he said, that have been leading the hirings this year making the most offers, but they require software skills as well and pick students for software roles as well.
“The most hiring is being done by start-up companies, many of which are unicorns with international clients as well. They are readily picking from the IIT talent pool over the years, as they grow,” said Shrivastava.
This year, because of the general elections, he added, several companies, mostly PSUs, have delayed their visits till June, so placement cycle will end on June 30, which otherwise completes by April 30.
Placement executives from several first and second generation IITs said that this year the recruitment process has been extended up to June, which is mostly wrapped by April-May, as a number of students are still being placed.
A student placement executive from one of the top IITs, said, that this year the number of international firms coming down to campus has been lesser while the the number of students being picked by them too has dropped.
A placement official from IIT-Indore, said, this year has been “challenging” in terms of recruitment numbers as well as the average salary packages being offered.
“Recruiters are now looking for more specific software roles than the general ones for which they would until last year or so hire around 8-10 students. This has come down to say three of four now,” the official said.
According to Prof V Ramgopal Rao, group vice-chancellor, Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani campuses and former director of IIT-Delhi, this is the first year when “effects of generative AI on placements have been most visible than ever.”
“The lower placements for the graduating batches this year is both a result of generative AI features like ChatGPT taking away all entry-level coding jobs as well as major IT firms not hiring as much because of the slowdown. Definitely, AI has contributed in changing the industry dynamics for recruitment of fresh talent in the domain. In many of the big IT sector firms, at least 30 percent employees don’t have much to do. This is mainly because of over-hiring during the pandemic when it was anticipated that everything will go online, but didn’t turn out to be so,” said Prof Rao.
Currently, he said, many firms are training their employees in generative AI such that they can develop the higher level, more complex algorithms instead of hiring more people for the same job.
Surge in Demand For Data, Cyber Security Engineers
According to Prof G Balasubramanian, chief placement officer, BITS Pilani, the junior-level coding roles offered mostly by service-based IT companies, which are primarily valued for producing high volumes of low-quality code, are affected by AI with automated code generation softwares like ChatGPT.
However, he said, there is a surge in demand for specialist programmers in emerging roles like Data Science, Data Engineering, Cyber Security and Machine Learning engineers who use large language models for predictive analytics.
At the BITS Pilani campuses, more than 62 percent of the B.E batch is inclined towards IT/software roles while 18 percent towards analytics.
“With a global slowdown in IT causing subdued hiring due to fewer requirements, there is a 15-20 percent drop in Computer Science hiring as on date. However, with a strong alumni base, we expect to reach last year’s figures by the end of the placement cycle,” said Prof Balasubramanian.
He added that traditional software companies have hired, but their hiring numbers have reduced. This is similar in the electronics sector, where semiconductor companies also had reduced hiring for both software and hardware profiles.
“There was a good surge in the manufacturing sector with the advent of new brands and niche roles like supply chain and mechatronics. Compared to last year, the banking sector looked bullish, with newer roles in risk management, AI and ML, in addition to software roles. We also saw a surge in High Frequency Trading firms this cycle, where companies offered a monthly domestic stipend of Rs 4 lakhs, 26.5 percent growth over last year,” he said.
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