AI will replace 10% of incremental jobs in IT sector: TV Mohandas Pai

Increasing use of artificial intelligence will kill more and more jobs at the lower and middle rung of the information technology (IT) industry, replacing around 10 per cent of incremental jobs created each year, says industry veteran T V Mohandas Pai.

Middle-level managers would bear the major brunt as artificial intelligence would take over nearly half of their functions, reports quoted the former CFO and HR head of Infosys as saying.

"I think in the IT sector, may be 10 per cent, minimum, of incremental jobs that are created will disappear. That means every year if they do (create) 2 to 2.5 lakh jobs, 25,000-50,000 jobs will disappear," said Pai.

The IT industry in India currently employs 4.5 million people and, according to him, middle-level managers account for 10 per cent (or 450,000) of the 4.5 million. Automation would make half of them (2,25,000) redundant and lose jobs over the next one decade.

"There are today lots of people (middle-level managers) earning between Rs30 lakh and Rs70 lakh (per annum). Half of them will lose their jobs in the next ten years," PTI quoted Pai as saying in an interview.

Stressing that the tech investor today needs a new breed of IT engineers with better skills and deep technical knowledge, he said prospects for those having just a bachelors degree (B Tech) are going to be "less and less in IT".

He said IT hiring would become more and more specialised with companies looking for higher and greater levels of expertise, which would require aspirants to do specialisation or post-graduation.

"An ordinary BTech is like 10th standard today because you have to go ahead for the next 30 year," said Mohandas Pai, who is the chairman of Manipal Global Education.

"For lower-level jobs (entry-level), hiring will keep reducing by 10 per cent every year. Ordinary graduates who are trained to go up the ladder will have less prospects. Out of the total number of people hired, fresher level doing ordinary work, there will be 10-15 per cent reduction in the category year-by-year," he said.

But there will be 10-15 per cent increase in the category of masters (post-graduates) and skilled people because there is a great need for that, added Pai.

He said automation, machine-learning (artificial intelligence) and robotics would create a new kind of specialised workforce.

"People who have got skills in artificial intelligence, machine learning and new coding languages like Python, Android and those in mobile area would do very well in the next five years," he pointed out.

Only 2 lakh-2.5 lakh IT engineers out of the total 6.5 lakh who come to the market every year get jobs in their chosen field.

"Many of the engineers who come out of bad colleges... there are good jobs like Ola and Uber waiting for them. I am not joking. In Bengaluru, many of the software engineers are giving up their jobs and driving Ola and Uber and making more money. It's much more lucrative. Why work for 14 hours a day (in an IT company) and earn (only) Rs 3.5 lakh (per annum), when you can earn Rs6 lakh - 7 lakh (per year) driving a car?" he said.

Pai, who is a co founder of VC firm of Aarin Capital Partners, said Indian IT companies are ahead of the curve as far as automation is concerned and "they are winning the battle."

 "Five of the top 10 globally competitive (IT) service companies are Indian," added Pai.