In top gear

With India emerging as a global hub for small car manufacturing, car makers are expecting the annual output to exceed three million cars by 2010. And with the rising steel prices, automobile companies—both domestic and international—are scrambling for experts who have the talent to modify and design various components efficiently. “India enjoys a distinct cost advantage with respect to auto-ancillary manufacturing capabilities.

While the labour cost component in developed nations is 30-35 per cent of sales, Indian labour cost is only around 8-9 per cent of sales,” says Rajesh Kumar, Deputy General Manager, Knowledge Management & Business Development Team, TMI Group. India has now become the global supplier of components and accessories and thus the need for design engineers.

Fact file

Who’s hiring: Automobile companies such as Tata Motors, M&M, TVS Motors, IT firms doing engineering services offshoring as well as auto design firms

Who’re they hiring: B.E. /B.Tech. /M.E. /M.Tech with 3-5 years of experience in CAD/CAM (computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing) software design and development experience, good programming background in developing CAD applications using C, C++ programming languages.

At what levels: Across all levels—trainee, team members and managers

At what salaries: Starting at Rs 2 lakh for trainees. Can go up to Rs 15 lakh depending on experience

What are the numbers like: Industry experts estimate that India will need around 10,000 such professionals over the next 2-3 years