pune engineering students should be prepared for a tough time ahead with many it companies deciding to cut down on campus hiring next year all major engineering colleges in pune and pimpri chinchwad have registered 7080 placements at the end of this years placement season which is almost on a par or a bit less than last year but the projection for 2018 that is for students in their final year now are dismal keeping in mind the possible impacts of brexit trumps foreign policy and more automation in industry the it companies in all likelihood will discard the practice of mass recruitment of students sandeep meshram corporate relations officer at college of engineering pune said around 85 of the students registered with us secured placements this is almost same as 2017 but the future looks bleakmeshram told toi an it major that recruits about 120 lakh students a year has said it will hire around only 20000 in 2018 this was discussed at a meeting with training and placement officers of various engineering colleges though last year was slightly better this year was more or less stable but things are not looking good for the next year this year kpit technologies recruited 155 students in core profiles shitalkumar rawandale dean of the industry institute interaction at pimpri chnichwad college of engineering said the highest package in the institute was rs 75 lakhtrumps policy and a slowdown in the industry are main issues he said adding that the work of 100 people is now being done by 510 because of automation these will lead to a dip in placements rawandale saidwhile bulk recruitments will come down more startups are coming up these firms recruit in single digit but offer about rs 15 lakh more per year compared to branded companies the number of placements has come down but the average package is up by rs 2 lakh said a s kulkarni training and placement head vishwakarma institute of technologywe have kept a onejob policy wherein a student can appear for one placement session i dont think there will be much change next year said girish mundada training and placement officer at pune institute of computer technology