In March of this year, we reported that the top 5 IT firms recruited 24% fewer employees in 2015 due to an increase in automation in the IT sector. We didn’t anticipate the ripple effect of the automation phenomenon in an important industry – education.
According to the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), enrollment and intake for mechanical engineering have gradually overtaken the demand for computer science engineering in India over the last four years. This means that technical education in India is witnessing a massive transformation from IT to the non-IT field, which can seriously affect the job market in India.
As the demand for IT courses in engineering gradually decreases, job offers in mechanical disciplines are steadily increasing.
Mechanical Vs. Computer Science Engineering
According to AICTE data, 5,34,199 students enrolled in mechanical engineering in 2013-14, compared to 3,23,697 enrollments in computer science in the same year.
This is the highest gap witnessed by AICTE regarding mechanical and computer science courses in engineering. In fact, between 2012-13 and 2015-16, the intake of mechanical engineering students increased by 2 lakh all over the nation.
Interestingly, job offers also increased as the number of mechanical engineering students increased. In 2012-13, 95,000 job offers were given to mechanical engineering graduates, which swelled to 1,39,162 for the 2015-16 academic session.
Why Is Computer Science Demand Decreasing?
In April, we reported that factory jobs are back in demand due to the increased focus on Make in India, which encourages more manufacturing inside India rather than importing.
This can be a small reason, which came into effect last year.
However, the main reason seems to be a simple demand-and-supply rule: There are more IT professionals in India than there are IT professionals, shifting the base of technical education in India.
A senior official from the HRD Ministry said, “The IT industry was booming sometime back, and more and more students were pursuing computer science, but now the industry is saturated. There is more supply than demand for IT professionals in the industry, so students are moving towards other engineering fields..”
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For example, he said that if 100 people are required to create software, only three must maintain it, squashing the demand for IT experts.
Automation is also a major influence in shifting the demand for IT experts. Automation, robotics, and technology can potentially kill 5.1 million jobs worldwide by 2020, and the World Bank has just confirmed this fact. The jobs being automated quickly now belong to the IT sector; although mechanical jobs can also be affected, the rate is slower.
