AI-led job crisis looms in 2024
The wider deployment of AI technology in India is expected to make 15,000-20,000 jobs redundant in 2024, particularly in coding profiles, system maintenance, and support functions at junior levels.
Summary
- Consulting firms and recruiters estimate that AI deployment will lead to 15,000-20,000 job losses in 2024.
- Jobs involving coding, system maintenance, support functions at junior levels are most vulnerable to automation from AI.
- Major impact expected in IT, hospitality, banking sectors. Companies trying to upskill employees but still anticipating redundancies.
- Software development, customer support backend roles likely to face retrenchments as chatbots take over initial customer interactions.
- IT sector headcount growth estimated at only 2.4% in FY24 due to automation, a sharp decline from 20% growth in FY22.
- While AI expected to create some new jobs with upskilling, short term impact definitively negative.
- Call centers already seeing AI bots taking over parts of customer support roles. Analytics, coding also evaluation in progress for automation.
- Estimate of around 15,000 job losses in IT sector alone amongst junior profiles that can be digitized.