Hyderabad: Placements of students pursuing various undergraduate and postgraduate engineering courses has been on a steady decline in the state, with experts hinting at the figures plummeting further this year. Of the total enrolled students, barely 25% land jobs. This is expected to reach a new low of 15% this year.As per an assessment by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), Telangana fares poorly when it comes to placements for undergraduate and postgraduate students of engineering courses. Data available with AICTE reveals that not more than 25% of them landed jobs between 2012 and 2015. From, 45,956 in 2014-15, the numbers fell to 43,459 in 2015-16.Apart from the existing problem of graduates not being industry-ready, automation too has come as a big blow, with software replacing human skill. The ones to bear the brunt of automation will be electronic engineering and electrical engineering graduates."I wouldn't be surprised if the placement figures fall to 20,000-30,000 this year. It would be an alarming dip. Although high-end jobs would be available for students who have good skills in coding and other niche areas, the low-end requirement is drying up, with companies switching to automation," explained A Kishore, director, training and placement, at Vasavi College of Engineering.Meanwhile, students of mechanical and computer engineering will be insulated to some extent from the impact of automation. "Core computer science courses with focus on big data, artificial intelligence and cyber security will always be in demand. However, the impact will also depend on the institutes' focus of these courses. If they focus on recruitments by service-oriented companies and do not teach core computer science, their placements can drop. However, the ones that focus on research and development, big data, networking, mobile technology and app technology will not face the issue," pointed out Wilson Naik, placement co-ordinator at School of Computer Science, University of Hyderabad.