Majority white collar workers fear job loss as AI grows at CAGR of 25-35% in India

By Rajiv Shah

An Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) study, "Labour-force Perception about AI: A Study on Indian White-collar Workers", has revealed that as many as 60% of white collar workers fear job loss as a result of artificial intelligence (IA) being introduced in Indian industry, while only 53% "hope" that new jobs will be created.
Based on a field survey of over 550 white-collar employees, detailed interviews of 31 business executives, and analysis of over 70,000 job vacancies in India from public data sources, the study finds, "The fear of job loss is the least common among senior and leadership-level employees, but significantly higher among early-career and mid-career-level employees."
Carried out under the auspices of the Brij Disa Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence of the IIM-A, the study says that 68% of white collar employees "believe AI will automate their jobs in the next five years", even as noting that entry-level and leadership-level employees "have the least hope of AI creating new jobs".

Pointing towards the type of changes that might take place because of AI, the study, quoting business executives, says, there is fear of "workforce reductions", including among "data entry operators, quality inspectors, demand forecasters, and language translators." Those impacted also include "quality control inspectors and demand planners, management information systems (MIS) managers, and IT support teams."
"Clerical and administrative roles involving data entry, documentation, and routine tasks appear particularly vulnerable to being automated by AI technologies", the study believes, adding, "Such experiences have stoked fears about job security in specific roles."
Such fears are taking shape, says the study, amidst the integration of AI technologies leading to "the creation of specialised job roles focused on topics such as visualisation, forecasting, natural language processing (NLP) experts, and prompt engineers."

Carried out by IIM-A scholars Prof Anindya Chakrabarti, Prof Aditya C Moses, Prof Ankur Sinha, Debjit Ghatak and Amita Todkar, and Boston Consulting Group's Deep Narayan Mukherjee as partner, study estimates that by 2035, AI will "contribute a staggering USD 967 billion to the Indian economy", as the "AI market in India is growing at a CAGR of 25-35% and is expected to reach USD 28 billion by 2030".
The authors say, "India’s growing population warrants AI-driven solutions within critical sectors like education, healthcare, and agriculture to address escalating societal needs", especially in view of the fact that "China+1 initiative’s revitalisation of the manufacturing sector presents opportunities to leverage AI for enhanced efficiency and competitiveness".
Given this framework, the study was necessitated, say the authors, because "the proliferation of AI has reignited the debate on potential 'technological unemployment' across various sectors of the economy", with researchers, technologists, and thought leaders postulating that "an escalating number of tasks traditionally performed by human labour will become automated as AI capabilities advance."

While there is also the view that "the productivity and innovation gains from automation will create new businesses and jobs", the authors believe,"The current study acknowledges that both sides have relevant points given the ‘never-before-seen’ situation and the emergent behaviour of AI’s impact on society." They add, this is because, already, "the impact of AI on the white-collar workforce is multifaceted."
Thus, according to the study, AI usage in the education sector is 74%, in information technology it is 66%, and in public administration 61%. "However, sectors like retail and trade (31%), infrastructure (38%), and finance and insurance (54%) are lagging behind the average", it asserts.
The authors find that in "education, public administration, healthcare, and manufacturing, the percentage of employees self-training is higher than that of employees trained by the organisation, showcasing a greater personal initiative."

In fact, in these sectors, "employees, as individuals, are taking the lead in AI adoption and training themselves compared to the organisations they work for", the study notes, adding, "Compared to 55% of employees using AI at the workplace, 62% of respondents stated to have used AI outside the workplace, and 58% agreed to have personally subscribed to (free or paid) AI-based tools."
The authors say, "52% of employees are self-training compared to 48% trained by organisations, signifying employee push for AI use", which suggests, the "employees are also strongly positive about AI’s impacts on performance and productivity. 72% of employees believe AI skills increase performance and efficiency at work, while 62% of employees believe AI increases productivity, and 59% believe AI complements their work."
Pointing out that "except for retail and trade employees, most employees use AI and believe it increases their productivity and performance", the study states, "58% of employees agree to have already upskilled in AI. 65% of employees want to learn AI skills. 70% of employees believe upskilling in AI is necessary for career growth.While 51% agree they need AI skills for their current job role, 70% are upskilling for future prospects."

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