How Engineering Graduates are being exploited

Education
Author

Venu GVGK

Published

June 8, 2025

The following is written and shared by Peri Maheswar, who runs careers360. This goes beyond our usual complaints about the education and employment system and highlights real economic exploitation in the neo-liberal education system.

This is the sordid saga of India’s fresh engineering graduates being underpaid. This was an active collusion between the big tech companies like Infosys, TCS, Accenture, Cognizant etc and the engineering colleges. The negotiation was always about the placement % than the salary package. Read this explosive story and the thread.

  1. Between 2010 and 2025, India’s major IT companies — TCS, Infosys, Accenture, Cognizant, and Wipro — have seen a huge rise in employee numbers, rising between 116% to 291% in these top 5 companies in the IT Services segment.

  2. However, the salary offered in campus placements across engineering colleges was constant in 15 years. The salary of TCS grew from 3.15 lacs in 2007 to Rs.3.36 lacs in 2024. The salary at Infosys grew from Rs. 3.25 lacs in 2010 to Rs.3.6 lacs in 2024.

  3. Indexed to inflation, the real income in the hands of fresh engineering graduates fell by 60% in TCS and 49% in Infosys. Factoring in the inflation, it should have been 7.89 lacs in TCS and 6.40 lacs in Infosys.

  4. With drop in salaries in real terms, the companies increased recruitment and had more manpower for new contracts, thus increasing revenues with no increase in cost. The profits soared. The profits from 2010 to 2025 for these companies were as follows:
    Infosys went up from ₹5,755 crore to ₹26,750 crore TCS profits shot up from ₹7,001 crore to ₹48,553 crore Wipro profits went up from ₹4,003 crore to ₹13,500 crore Cognizant shot up from $734 million to $2.5 billion Accenture grew from $1.78 billion to $7.68 billion

  5. While all this was happening, the companies also started cutting employee recruitment so that scarcity would create fear. The employee count across all the top 5 companies fell in 2024. Infosys count fell from 3,43,234 to 3,17,240, a drop of 25,994. TCS headcount fell from 6,14,795 to 6,01,546, a fall of 13,249 Wipro fell from 2,48,813 to 2,34,054, a fall of 14,759 Cognizant headcount fell from 3,47,700 to 3,36,800, a fall of 10,900

  6. The educational institution also had to have its cut. Showcasing increasing placements ( in numbers and not in median salary), they started charging higher fees. The fees charged went up by about 327% in these 15 years across top 10 private institutions. The fees at government colleges (IITs) went up by 400%.

  7. All this increased the payback period for the student. An B.Tech costing about 4 lacs in 2007 costs Rs.20 lacs in 2025. With salary remaining constant and a bank loan with interest becoming the only way, the payback for a student which was an year in 2007-10 is today 7 to 8 years.

  8. Every one makes money. The big tech companies revenues multiples. Profits soared. The educational institutions increased capacity and now charges 4 times more than 15 years back. The student is burdened with a loan and an EMIT with interest to pay.

This is the sordid saga of India and its demographic dividend. Where the government abdicated its responsibility, the big companies exploited the middle class vulnerability and the educational institutions joined the party by increasing intakes while keeping the salary constant.

The students and parents now will have a loan on themselves with a payback period of 6 to 8 years. That too, if they are lucky to have a job after the increased intakes.