1. Vinodrai Engineers Pvt. Ltd.,
12 Km. Stone, Jalna-Aurangabad Road,
Village Dawalwadi, District : Jalna
Jalna – 431 203 ( India )
Ph: +91-2482-262000 Fax: +91-2482-262400
Web: vinodrai.com , E-Mail : vinodraieng@gmail.com
7 NOV, 2012, 01.31AM IST, SHREYA BISWAS,ET BUREAU
Auto majors like Maruti, Yamaha hiring more women as mechanical
engineers for better productivity
NEW DELHI: When Yamaha inducted
200 women to work on its scooter
assembly line last month, it was an oddity
in the auto industry, even though these
women were only apprentices.
The management thinks women bring
more discipline and better productivity,
hence this experiment. But the company
has also seen the number of women
mechanical engineers go up from zero to
15 in three years.
The diversity wheels are slowly turning in the rest of the auto industry too. Maruti
SuzukiBSE 0.92 % recruited 45 women engineers from campuses this year, double the
number it hired two years ago.
About 90% are mechanical engineers. Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) hired 30 women,
also from campuses this year, up from a single digit figure during the past three years.
A few dozens of women hires might seem like mere tokenism in the auto industry that
employs 13 million people, but a deeper shift is visible even in the training fields.
Mechanical engineering - the traditional male-dominated route of entry into the auto
industry - is attracting more and more women students. The numbers are not yet
significant enough to alter diversity in shop floors, but it is good enough for companies to
steadily step up hiring.
About 45,000 more women signed up for engineering courses this year than they did last
year taking the total to 5.88 lakh, according to data from the All India Council for
Technical Education (AICTE). Within this, the number of girls opting for mechanical
engineering has almost doubled to 8,209 in 2011-12.
Choosing Auto Ahead of IT
"Today companies don't have that huge a pool to recruit
when they go to colleges. Hopefully that will change in
future," says Prince Augustine, executive VP, group
human capital and leadership development, Mahindra &
Mahindra.
"A considerable change in the talent pool for companies
will be visible in the next three to four years," adds SS
Mantha, chairman, AICTE.
In some pockets, women are even choosing the auto
sector ahead of IT. At Cummins College of Engineering for women, if IT was the top
choice 3-4 years ago, it's mechanical engineering today.
Pursuing excellence in rotational moulding.