Summary of this article
Gig work and self-employment are the new ways of earning.
Eight million new graduates enter the Indian workforce.
Conventional white-collar jobs are going to be hard to get.
At a time when freelancing and tags of "self-employed" are seen all over, Saurabh Mukherjea, founder and Chief Investment Officer of Marcellus Investment Managers, in a podcast, has warned the salary-dependent workers that times are about to change for them. He speaks from noticing patterns of around a decade, how corporate jobs are not going to be serving a lot of people. Layoffs, minimum salaries and automation replacing human effort have been common reasons for low job vacancies.
He pointed out how India's white-collar jobs have stagnated for the past five years. He argues that even the hopes of corporate jobs to bounce back are slim. Gig work and self-employment are the new ways of earning. The reason lies in automation and efficiency that is required in the corporate world. Most of the low-effort technical jobs are handed over to automation, reducing headcount and still maintaining the growth.
Shrinking corporate seats and rising youth
Every year, eight million new graduates enter the Indian workforce; meanwhile, the job openings remain limited. This is a massive mismatch between opportunity and aspiration. He warned, "the next few years will be testing India's ability to reinvent work", by figuring out how to give livelihood to the people entering the workforce.
Large firms no longer require big teams to scale and grow. Well-known companies like HDFC, Bajaj Finance, Titan, and Asian Paints are not hiring aggressively anymore.
He also foreshadows how salaried jobs are also being rejected by a segment of people who have already realised this. People are switching to working more independently, as freelancers, creators, or contractual workers.
Mukherjea believes that India is far better placed than other countries when it comes to a gig-based workforce. Cheap data and centralised digital systems like UPI are the foundation of a more independent youth and self-employment.
He advises the youth on how they can tackle this, which will be a potential problem for them. Conventional white-collar jobs are going to be hard to get, preparing the youngsters and ourselves for the future, where gig work and self-employment are the basis of stability.
