The Economic Survey 2023-24 released on Monday considers the pace of technology developments, especially those in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), to be among the key determinants of India’s medium-term economic growth and says that AI’s uncertainty on jobs could be a hindrance to India’s progress.   

“Technology is emerging as the biggest strategic differentiator determining the economic prosperity of nations. Its productivity enhancing potential is beyond doubt but the social impact of emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) via labour market disruptions and labour displacement is barely understood. It also has the potential to skew the capital and labour shares of income in favour of the former,” the Economic Survey said.  

The government’s comments on AI impact on the labour market comes at a time when the Survey projects a need to generate an average of nearly 78.5 lakh jobs annually until 2030 (in the non-farm sector) to cater to the rising workforce.

The Survey argued that despite all its benefits, AI’s impact on workers across all skill levels is uncertain, and this will create barriers for India to sustain high growth rates. “Overcoming these requires a grand alliance of union and state governments and the private sector,” it added.

In his note part of the Survey, the chief economic advisor V Anantha Nageswaran said that the corporate sector has a responsibility “to think harder about ways AI will augment labour rather than displace workers.” He noted that hiring in the IT sector has slowed significantly in the last two years, and “deploying capital-intensive and energy-intensive AI is probably one of the last things a growing, lower-middle-income economy needs.”

“For talent to be future-ready, they need to be adaptable and open to exploring diverse opportunities & upskilling. As the industry faces talent gaps in niche and specialized technologies, investing time and effort into developing unique skills can make talent more attractive to potential employers., Milind Shah, Managing director, Randstad Digital in India, said.

Munira Loliwala, VP, Strategy& Growth, TeamLease Digital, says that job roles will be redefined and not eradicated with the advent of AI and Gen AI. “AI will be more of an augmenter of human capability. Job losses will be replaced by job displacements that require reskilling,” she added.

Without laying down specific solutions, the Survey added that the job market must adapt while leveraging the tech towards collective welfare measures. It suggested employees and job seekers to develop skills such as analytical thinking, innovation, complex problem solving, technology design and programming, and resilience and adaptability. 

“It is how we use the technology- whether we use it for automation, surveillance and control or we use it for informed decision making, problem-solving and augmentation- that decides whether AI will facilitate the path of job creation or will be a hindrance to it,” the Survey said . 

Published on July 22, 2024