AI Threat to White-Collar Jobs in India: Arindam Paul’s Warning on LinkedIn:

In a post on LinkedIn, Arindam Paul - founder and CBO at Atomberg, shocked social media users by announcing that nearly half of all white collar jobs would vanish due to an AI tsunami. This would be an enormous issue for the middle class population of India.

In his own words, he expresses concern over people's limited outlook, including country's top leaders, regarding the retaliation AI will have on the economy and how it will shift the social class demographics in India.

According to him, the remaining portion of the society relying on jobs will be hit the hardest.

“I don’t think most people including our leaders still understand how big a threat AI could be to our economy,” is how he began to his post Paul.

While staring down the barrel, Paul mentions how this might will lead to deathrace for the remaining middle class population, to which he predicts there will be a time where, “…and that would mean the end of the middle class and the consumption story.”

New developments hinting at dire straights for India's economic position

In the views of Paul, there would be no way for Indian industries to catch up with the amount of money they would need to pay workers, which is stated to be 3-6 lacs, so they can actually afford to live.

“Right now, we are manufacturing jobs that pay between 3 and 6 lakh per year at a rate that is far too low,” Paul mentioned in his statement.

Profound cuts and downsizing are predicted in the next semester in India’s outsourcing, BPO and IT service sector.

“Even though I believe firms like Infosys will manage to survive, some may even prosper, it still doesn’t change the fact that they will not be hiring anywhere near the same number of people,” he added.

AI Experts Arindam Paul has also observed that at least some businesses in India now seem to be content with the prospect of increased efficiency brought by AI directly contradicting the need for human labor. In that respect, they are failing to acknowledge that with increased job losses as a result, there will be fewer people with disposable income, and thus, fewer people to stimulate the economy.

“Today all businesses are gloating over the fact that with AI, they can do away with people and enhance productivity and profits. What they don’t reckon with is the reverse squeeze on topline,” explained the CIO.

In concluding his article Paul also pointed out that while he is staying hopeful, he does not think this is likely to happen in India unless the country increases its current manufacturing activity by at least 200 percent.

Seeing India progress to the unforeseen extent where its GDP grows both in scale and per capita, is surely something I want to witness. Nonetheless, as stated in Paul’s post on LinkedIn, the most likely scenario for India is extremely probable unless some drastic measures are enforced on manufacturing.