Of course I can't find any documentation stating those exact words. However, from what I can gather, I am not too far off target. In publications released by professional bodies (APESMA for example), I frequently see summaries of industry surveys stating that employers would have actually offered more graduate positions if they had found the 'right' people. The constant 'skills' shortage due to a lack of suitable graduates can't be an academic problem seeing that many people average over the widely used academic prerequisite of 65. I don't believe that it has anything to do with teaching material not being relevant enough to industry either. The fact is that most of the stuff that is taught in university has never been used in the workplace; you're going to be using FEA packages, not deflection and stress equations. It can't be expected that universities will invest in every possible software package that is used in industry. Universities can only teach the fundamentals and encourage the right type of thinking.
On top of all that, comments by careers advisors and responses from company reps about what they look for in graduates all point to the importance that firms place on cultural fit. I haven't seen anything which would suggest that there has been a consistent lack of graduates with the necessary level of technical aptitude over the last few years.
As for the topic: Most people I've spoken to say that civil is easier than mechanical.
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