Biju Dharmapalan
The spectre of artificial intelligence destroying jobs has become one of the most persistent anxieties of our times. Boardrooms and classrooms alike buzz with the same dread- are machines on the verge of replacing us at a scale never seen before? There is little concrete proof so far that AI has significantly disrupted employment patterns. Instead, what we are witnessing is not a sudden collapse of jobs, but the early stages of a complex and uneven transformation.

The Indian job market is not monolithic; it is layered, fragmented, and heavily reliant on the informal sector. Roughly nine out of ten workers are engaged in informal employment, ranging from agriculture and construction to small retail and local gig workers. These sectors are not easily susceptible to automation, at least not in the immediate future. Unlike advanced economies, where automation can rapidly replace routine tasks, India’s labour-intensive ecosystem offers a degree of resilience against sudden technological shocks. That buffer, though, comes with an important caveat. The sectors most exposed to AI disruption are precisely those that powered India’s rise on the global stage: IT services and business process outsourcing. These industries were built on a workforce skilled in repetitive cognitive work— answering queries, entering data, writing basic code.

AI is now performing many of thesesame tasks with growing competence. The danger is not mass layoffs tomorrow, but a quiet narrowing of the entry-level pipeline. Young graduates who might once have climbed the professional ladder through these roles may find fewer rungs to stand on.

Nor are more specialised professions entirely safe. Writers, translators, lawyers, and teachers are all feeling AI encroach on territory once considered exclusively human. Yet framing this as replacement misses the point. AI is better understood as a reshaper of roles rather than an eliminator of them. A journalist with AI assistance can file more stories; a teacher can craft richer lessons; a clinician can make faster diagnoses. Output per worker rises — but the total number of workers an organisation needs to achieve the same output may fall. Growth in productivity does not automatically translate into growth in employment.

History, as it often does, offers some reassurance. Electricity, mechanisation, computing, the internet — each was greeted with predictions of mass unemployment that never quite materialised. Jobs changed, disappeared, and were replaced by others that nobody had imagined before. Current evidence suggests AI is following a similar trajectory, disrupting labour markets no more rapidly than earlier waves of technological change did. That does not make the disruption painless, but it does make it navigable.

The central challenge for India, then, is not protecting jobs from extinction but equipping people for the jobs that will emerge. This is where the education system becomes critical and where the gap is most glaring. There is still a clash of ideals between the Gen- alpha, Gen-Z , Millennial Generation or Generation Y and Gen- X , and all these people live in today’s society. This is creating an awkward situation where people from the previous generation are not willing to adapt to the changes that have happened in our society. This results in a situation where millions enter the workforce each year without the higher-order skills — analytical reasoning, creative thinking, the ability to synthesise knowledge across disciplines — that an AI-augmented economy will value the most. Routine competencies,
once a reliable parameter for stable employment, will steadily lose their value.

Policymakers face an additional obstacle: they are beating the bush without any reliable data.
Decisions are made based on outdated surveys and educated guesses. That is a precarious
situation for policies that could affect millions of livelihoods.

Yet, amid these challenges lie significant opportunities. India’s youthful population, combined with its growing digital infrastructure, positions it uniquely to harness the potential of AI. The country’s startup ecosystem is already exploring innovative applications of AI in agriculture, healthcare, education, and governance. From precision farming to telemedicine, AI has the potential to address some of India’s most pressing developmental challenges. Moreover, as global demand for AI talent rises, India could emerge as a key supplier of skilled professionals, much as it did during the IT boom.

Seizing that potential requires deliberate action on several fronts simultaneously. Curricula need urgent reform to reflect the demands of an AI-era economy. Continuous learning updating one’s skills not once, but throughout a career — must become standard practice rather than a privilege for the few. Safety nets must be robust enough to support workers caught in transition. And the country needs far better tools to monitor what is actually happening in its labour market so that interventions can be calibrated and timely.

The apocalyptic version of AI’s arrival in the workplace makes for a gripping narrative, but the data does not support it — not yet, not here. India stands at a watershed moment, and the decisions made by policy makers in the coming years will determine whether AI deepens existing inequalities or helps dismantle them.

Ultimately, the future of work in India will not be dictated by technology alone. It will be shaped by policy, education, innovation, and the collective ability to adapt. AI is not an unstoppable force that will inevitably displace human labour; it is a tool whose impact depends on how it is used. The real question, therefore, is not whether AI will take our jobs, but whether we are prepared to redefine what jobs mean in an age of intelligent machines.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article are those of the author and doesn’t necessarily reflects the editorial policy of Voice of Ladakh.