coimbatore time was when the first choice of most aspiring engineering students was information technology that was 15 years ago after the internet bubble burst of 2000 the second great recession of 20072009 and ominous signs of a second bubble building up to critical mass in 2013 when tech companies worldwide raised close to 13 billion in ipos there are fewer jobs in the market than there are it seats in engineering colleges colleges across the country are cutting back on it seats looking to surrender them and seek permission from tech education regulator all india council for technical education aicte to swap them for seats in core engineering branches of the 26 branches of engineering offered engineering colleges in the state this year have 12242 it seats which is around a third of the 37534 seats in electronics and communication engineering it seats also account for a little more than half of the 23465 seats in civil engineering and 23059 seats in electrical and electronics engineering students of it in their graduating year still appear for campus placements only now they have to contend with students of other departments in a gloomy job market the companies that visit colleges early recruit the most students a professor at an engineering college said with colleges allowing students of all streams to attend campus placements together it students are forced to compete with students from other departments and it students lose out because they are only recruited by tech companies students of core engineering branches are recruited by tech companies and firms in other sectors colleges constantly attempt to better their placement records to have a sustained run at the top they cannot have students who are not recruited at the end of a course to ensure that students are placed irrespective of branches it is important that we balance strength across all departments with the market conditions in mind the principal of an engineering college said we have no choice but to reduce or increase seats according to market demand waning demand for it grads has also resulted in fewer students opting for it than before till 2008 an industry expert said the infotech industry was growing at almost 30 a year but after the recession growth has halved to around 15 the industry recruited 25 lakh candidates in 201213 last year it dropped to around 2 lakh this trend is likely to continue this year national association of software and services companies nasscom chennai regional director k purushothaman said he said new engineering colleges come up in the country each year so there are more newlyminted engineers this will add to the number of students failing to get employment after an it degree purushothaman said tech companies say things are quite different from a decade ago but disagree on the need for colleges to cut back on it seats tech companies want competent employees infotech professional anand sitaraman said perhaps there is no need to increase the number