L&T to recruit 4,500 engineers in 2006-07

Larsen & Toubro, the construction major, expects to recruit about 4,500 engineers during the current financial year.

On the sidelines of inaugurating its 'Technology centre' at Manapakkam in Chennai on Monday, A M Naik, chairman and managing director, L&T, said that the company would be recruiting about 2,000 engineers in manufacturing and about 2,500 persons for its engineering design and information technology services.

Naik said that the company is in the process of building software parks for its infotech arm across six destinations in the country which is expected to have a headcount of 8,000.

He was talking about the manpower crunch witnessed in the manufacturing sector as youngsters opt for software and business process outsourcing services. Naik mentioned L&T would be able to grow at a faster pace as a large number of engineers are choosing manufacturing.

He said that manufacturing sector does not pay as much as software or BPO, and it cannot do so also. This is the major reason why young engineers opt for IT and BPO. Salaries paid to software professionals and employees of BPO industry are benchmarked toward the US economy, for which most of the projects and backoffice are done, he added.

Naik pointed out that the contribution of manufacturing sector to the Indian economy was much more than the services sector.