Even with an ailing economy and an anemic housing industry, a demand for engineering students is evidenced by an upcoming career fair where an all-time record number of employers will be trolling for graduates and future graduates.

Representatives from 130 engineering companies or companies in other fields who employ engineers will be on the California State University, Sacramento, campus from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. March 10 in the University Union Ballroom.

That's a big increase from just four years ago, when just 36 companies attended the annual College of Engineering and Computer Science career fair.

Cici Mattiuzzi, who directs the College of Engineering and Computer Science's career center at CSUS, said she has never seen such a hiring market in her three decades of observing job demand.

"This is pretty astounding," she said. "I have never seen the market so hot for engineers."

The career fair is only open to CSUS engineering and computer science students and alumni. About 1,200 job-seekers are expected to attend.

Companies scheduled to attend have more than 3,500 job openings. The greatest demand is for civil engineering candidates.

The market is strong in part because of population growth, the retirement of baby boomer engineers and growing demands to build infrastructure. The companies come from industries such as consulting, the military, manufacturing, construction, government, utilities and transportation.

Some of the companies on the long list to set up a table at the career fair are C.C. Myers, the busy construction company from Rancho Cordova, Caltrans, Chevron, Frito-Lay, Pacific Gas and Electric and Turner Construction.

Praveen Jayakumar, who has a bachelor's degree in engineering from his native India and is a CSUS computer science master's student, plans to hand out his résumé at the career fair. Jayakumar, 24, wants to stay in this country and is glad there are job opportunities.

"I definitely want to be working as a computer engineer or computer scientist," he said. "I'm hoping to get a job. I'm going to be making a bunch of copies of my résumé and handing out a copy to companies."