22% students in IIT Delhi did not find a job in last five years, says records

IIT Delhi faces job placement crisis with 22% unplaced students, stagnant salaries, and concerns over economic growth.

The Indian Institute of Delhi, in replying a set of questions under Right to Information Act, has said that about 22% of its students who registered for placement between 2019 and 2023 could not secure a job. The premier institution said that the process of job placements are continuing for this year and declined to give the details of appointments. Analysts, however, claimed that the number of students who could find an employment in 2024 is about 40%.

The average and median salaries for the students have also been stagnating during the last four years, according to the RTI reply. In 2021-22, ₹ 23.8 lakh was the average Cost To the Company (CTC) and ₹ 19.9 lakh was the gross salary. The median salary in this year was ₹ 18.2 lakh (CTC) and ₹ 16 lakh (gross). In 2022-23, the average salary was ₹ 21.9 lakh (CTC) and ₹ 18.6 lakh (gross). The median salary in this academic year was ₹ 19.5 lakh (CTC) ₹ 17.4 lakh (gross), according to the RTI reply, a copy of which is with The Hindu.

In 2021-22, 1105 students who were registered under the career services of the IIT were placed and in 2022-23, 1270 of 1513 students who were registered for the career services got placement. In 2021-22, 366 students were not placed and in 2022-23, 243 did not get any jobs.

Dheeraj Singh, an IIT Kanpur alumnus and founder of Global IIT Alumni Support Group and a mentor for IIT students, who filed the RTI application said it is shocking that in IIT Delhi around 22% students have been unplaced in the last five years. Citing reports, he said 40% students are unplaced in the current year to date. “The doubling of unplaced students points to precarious state of affairs in the best engineering college of the country located in national capital city where Education Ministry sits. Around 61% of the Postgraduates are still unplaced. This is an unprecedented job crisis situation our premier colleges and our young graduates are facing requiring urgent attention from the IIT Delhi officials and Ministry,” he said.

Mr. Singh added that such large number of unplaced students are dealing with a high level of stress and anxiety and hopelessness staring at the bleak future prospects due to the poor job placement scenario as reported by the students in our emotional health survey we recently undertook. “This is a very disheartening state of affairs for the top young talents of our country. IIT Delhi should help these unplaced students in finding a job beyond the placement season by providing them a second chance to sit for placements,” he demanded.

Economists have also expressed concern over the placement numbers. Eminent lbour economist Santosh Mehrotra said the scenario is proving that the talks about 8.4% growth rate of the country is a lie. He said the placement reports from various IITs question fictitiously high growth rate and the claim that the new economy is generating a lot of jobs. “Rating agencies are trying to sell this narrative to their multinational clients for increasing their own business. Even in the organised high paying sectors, jobs are not growing,” he said and added that IITs are speaking in different voices. “In the first round it self, the placements were showing lower than last year. When they realised that things are going against them, they stopped revealing the numbers. The situation is now very clear. This is the third week of April and companies have stopped coming for placements. Students were looking to join start-ups and start-ups are shedding jobs,” Prof. Mehrotra said.

He said the investment scenario is also bleak. “The investment in GDP never crossed the 31% mark in the last ten years. In 2004-14, the range of investment in GDP never fell below 31%. For this government, the range has been 26 to 31%. Under this circumstances, how will jobs grow? Big corporates created jobs for the IITs. The package size has also dropped dramatically,” he said.