Ramaya, a qualified engineer from a govt. college in India landed into a call centre for a job after her graduation in engineering. Soon, she quitted her job as the job was not satisfying her. Being a technical graduate, she was doing a job which was not at all technical. Soon after, she started hunting for a new technical job. Based on her previous experience, no company offered her a technical job as she worked in a call centre. After 8 months of harsh struggle, she started preparing for GATE exam and because of parents pressure she again took up a job in a start-up. But nothing changed, she didn’t get a technical job there and today she is working as a tele-caller. Is this the future of an engineering graduate? Are the dreams of the students fulfilled by engineering education? Was Ramaya not qualified enough to get a job of technical profile? Who is responsible for these scenarios? Can we blame Ramaya or her parents or job market or who has to be blamed? 

This is not the only story of Ramaya but many other engineering graduates. They are either unemployed or take up a non-technical job like Ramaya. They are qualified engineers but still unemployed. In this blog, we will discuss the reason for unemployment even if one is qualified.

First, the foremost reason is too many engineers. The engineering industry can’t consume all the engineers that are produced in engineering colleges in India. The demand for engineers is much lesser with respect to the supply of engineers. It leads to mass unemployment.

It may seem wired but it is true that Indian education system is not capable enough to prepare industry-ready engineers. There is a big gap between industry demands and college supplies which are building young engineers. Nowadays, the industry needs more skilled engineers as technology is growing very fast. Based on studies, only 6% of the students are qualified enough to get industry jobs and 94% lacks in their industry skills. “For example, Nasscom says 6 million people are required in cybersecurity by 2022. But we have a skills shortage”. To fulfil this education and industry gap, universities should work in the right direction. Programs should be made which are job-centric and can fill the skill gap between college graduates and industry demands. Loopholes of the education system should be eliminated and curriculum should be alignment with industry needs. Industry subject experts should be hired to train students.

In the last decade, low-quality engineering colleges have increased like mushrooms and they are responsible for low-quality engineers.  These colleges neither have good infra-structure nor proper placement. They don’t have trained faculty. Poorly guided students and rote learning are key features of these colleges.  No company come for placement or give jobs to these engineers. This type of collages kills the innovation skills of students. There is no sufficient ecosystem or technological artifacts for students in colleges. Facts explain that these engineering students are not given the right platform to implement their skills and the freedom to access or play with devices. Graduates from these colleges will fail to get the jobs in case a student get a job then it will be underpaid. After months of job hunt with success, they finally realize that they need a skillset to get a good job in the industry.

Another important reason for unemployment is branch-specific jobs. The industry has only CS/IT-related jobs. Even in the government sector, there are only a few jobs. Other fields of engineering have a few jobs only. All the engineering graduates lend to CS/IT jobs only. As a result of these, qualified engineers are forced to switch to non-technical background jobs. It eventually, leads the financial pressure on the parents and students. According to latest vacancy news, qualified engineers have applied for the job vacancy of sweeper in Tamil Nadu who are overqualified for these jobs.

Now the question arises, is only Indian Education System responsible for not allowing students to come up with innovative ideas or even parents and society are also equally responsible. Most of these engineering students are sometimes pushed to take a stream, which does not interest them, and they go nowhere in the career.  Students don’t have a proper platform to showcase their ideas and enhance it through further research and monetize it. Just having an engineering degree may be of no use to be excel in your career.

Other factors which lead to unemployment are reservation system, government policies, students themselves and no proper investment in R&D from the government.

The problem of engineering unemployment in our country is like a bomb which may explode anytime. The govt. and education bodies should take important steps to minimize unemployment. Students should also decide their priorities being proactive to learn and practice the minimum skill set required to get a job in the industry. To conclude this topic only government is not responsible for such scenarios students is also equally responsible. They should search and learn about the latest technologies.