The Struggles of India’s Engineering Job Market

South Asia has long been a hotbed for engineers to find employment, with it often being named as one of the best countries to relocate to for engineering jobs. But at some point in the recent future, the massive focus on engineering has caused a point of saturation and the steady decline of the job market for engineers in India. With recent shutdowns of engineering colleges seeming symptomatic of the situation, extremely high numbers of students with engineering degrees still rise, along with people moving from abroad to try and find a career. With these factors in mind, let’s consider what has deteriorated the job market, as well as what remains for hopefuls.

A Surplus of Candidates

Internally, there are roughly 1.5 million engineers graduating every year. That alone seems like an incredible amount of jobs that need to be created. Civil and mechanical engineering jobs are much easier to employ in low-income or high-construction zones. Similarly, information technology and computer engineer jobs are more common in high infrastructure and advanced cities such as Delhi. Financially assisting students through college helps to mitigate debt as the job market catches up, letting the degrees stay viable.

Additionally, an unmarked number of engineering graduates flock to India (and South Asia in general) annually to pursue jobs as well. This forces the job market to grow exponentially every year just to accommodate ludicrously high numbers. Perhaps the best option would be for Indian engineering graduates to look to other countries for employment, similar to those relocating to India?

A Dwindling International Market

The option of going abroad dwindles heavily every year. Other countries have made it progressively more difficult to move for a job. The United States has become more strict with the processing of the H-1B visa, beginning to strangle away one of the largest options of jobs. The United Kingdom has also seen reform to its immigration laws, and with Brexit looming in the background, many immigrants no longer trust the United Kingdom’s job market regardless. 

Lack of Qualifications

There’s also a great amount of debate over the qualifications of engineering graduates in India. A controversial study by Aspiring Minds recently claimed that as many as 95% of engineers in India were unfit for jobs. This study has seen massive amounts of push back but has raised the discussion of how the Indian education system matches up to that of other countries. With the rapidly increasing numbers of engineering schools shutting down, this seems far from being remedied.

None of this is to say that India is a wasteland. There are millions upon millions of jobs for engineering students and immigrants, especially those that have worked to earn experience and accolades to help them stand out. The government sectors, in particular, are among the highest employers of engineering students. Prospective students should work hard to improve their portfolio for the job market to help counteract the over-saturation and find a place in the job market.