Placements down by 30 per cent this year

CHENNAI: In a ripple effect, Britain’s exit from the European Union (EU) has brought down the job placements in Tamil Nadu engineering colleges by 30 per cent this year. Fearing the slowdown, the IT and IT services sector have cut their intake of engineering and MBA graduates this year.

“The number of job placements in both engineering and business schools is less this year compared to last year. Industry points out the ‘Brexit’ as one of the main reasons for lesser intake of the students. The placements in engineering institutions have come down by 25 to 30 per cent,” said VIT Chancellor G.Viswanathan. “I think they want to more cautious and they don’t want to employ more students and send them out,” he said.

Earlier, Britain’s exit (Brexit) which happened in June this year had fueled concerns of an adverse impact on several Indian companies with exposure to that country. Sathyabama University Vice-Chancellor B. Sheela Rani confirmed that the number of students recruited this year is less compared to last year. “We are planning to invite more companies to achieve our targeted number of placements in the university,” she said.

Another city college principal said the placements are down nearly 40 per cent. “Last year by this time we will have more than 200 students placed in companies. But this year around 100 students alone got placed,” he said. Some others pointed out economic slowdown and automation as other main reasons for the less number of placements.

PSG College of Technology principal R.Rudramoorthy said, “More companies are now focusing on reducing their manpower.” C.R. Swaminathan, past chairman, CII Southern Region said, “Brexit is only the part of the reason. It will affect only the IT companies. But, many industries are facing the economic slowdown for last six months. It resulted in less in taking of the students.”