Automation May Pose A Threat To A Developing Country Like India

Market volatility and rising protectionism in countries like the USA, where much of India's IT outsourcing work comes from, saw Cognizant's revenue grow at its slowest pace in two decades last year, and its peers in the Indian IT industry are in the same boat. Since the 1990s Indian firms have carried out back-office tasks, and IT services like data entry, running call centers, and testing software for foreign companies at cut-price rates by throwing cheap labor at them. But as machines become adept at this repetitive, rule-based work, the low-skill jobs – where the bulk of Indian IT workers are employed – are the most at risk. "It's been happening for the last two or three years in an accelerated fashion," says Gopinathan Padmanabhan, head of innovation at IT company Mphasis. This shift will go hand-in-hand with new opportunities in emerging areas – data science, artificial intelligence, and big data – but these will require new skills and probably fewer employees.