Infra companies get some good engineers, finally

The slowdown has come as a boon to the construction sector, at least on the talent front.

With recruitment offers for engineers from the IT sector drying up this year, construction and infrastructure companies are having a field day recruiting at top engineering colleges, including the vaunted Indian Institute of Technology (IITs).

Till last year, engineers from highly-ranked institutes were hired by IT companies, leaving other firms including those in the infrastructure space, with no option, but to go to second-rung colleges.

C K Singh, senior vice-president, human resources, Patel Engineering, said infra firms are in a more favourable position this year. “We are definitely able to attract more skilled engineers, especially civil engineers,” he said.

Patel Engineering hired around 23 engineering graduates last year, while this year it has recruited 21, mostly from National Institutes of Technology (NITs) at Silchar in Assam and at Hamirpur in Himachal Pradesh. The firm plans to recruit 35-40 in the next few months.

Infra firms that are hiring more fresh engineers than last year, agree that they have a wider pool of talented engineers to choose from.  Arun Sahai, chief executive officer of the New Delhi-based Ahluwalia Contracts, said in the last few years the best of the civil engineering graduates were absorbed by top IT firms such as Infosys and Wipro. “But the slowdown in that sector has meant civil engineers want to join the construction industry.”

While, Ahluwalia Contracts has not recruited any graduate engineering trainees (GETs) so far this year, Sahai said the company plans to recruit in April. It recruited 65 last year. “Though we won’t be hiring as many as last year, we will definitely recruit some GETs,” he said.

Infrastructure is better poised to sail through the downturn and has benefited as much as pharma, which has more chemical and bio-tech engineers to choose from. The construction sector also recruits architects and mechanical engineers.

S Ramnath, senior vice-president, Shriram EPC, said an engineering, procurement & construction (EPC) company has a higher need of mechanical and chemical engineers than civil engineers. Shriram EPC has been able to recruit from IIT-Chennai for the first time this year. It hired 12 engineers there and plans to go to other engineering institutes in May.

Construction firms prefer to recruit from colleges across the country as they can post engineers at project sites close to their hometowns. Bupesh Gupta, business manager, Careernet Consulting, said improving payscales are also working in favour of infrastructure sector.

“These firms pay graduates from Tier-II town colleges an average of Rs 15,000 in the first year and in about five years the salaries rise to the levels offered by the IT industry,” he said.