‘Death of salaried employment’: Saurabh Mukherjea predicts grim outlook for India’s middle class in this decade

Portfolio-management services firm, Marcellus Investment Managers' founder and chief investment officer (CIO), Saurabh Mukherjea, warned the Indian middle class about the reducing number of traditional white-collar jobs due to the industry-wide shift to automation.

In a recent podcast named 'Beyond the Paycheck: India's Entrepreneurial Rebirth,' Mukherjea said that the current decade will determine the effective death of “salary employment,” where hardworking people are expected to be replaced by automation and artificial intelligence (AI). 

“I think the defining flavour of this decade will be effectively the death of salaried employment, the gradual demise of salary employment as a worthwhile avenue for educated, determined, hardworking people,” Saurabh Mukherjea said in the podcast.

However, he also highlighted the recent rise of entrepreneurship and economic opportunities in the nation.

Shift to AI & Automation

Mukherjea emphasised that automation will be taking over sectors like India's IT sector, along with the media industry, and the financial services sector.

“Much of what was supposed to be done by white-collar workers is now done by AI. Google has made public that a third of its coding is now done by AI, and I am pretty sure the same is true for the Indian IT services companies,” he said in the podcast. 

He also mentioned that mid-level career options are now in danger of erosion due to the rapid advancement of technology.

“The old model where our parents worked 30 years for one organization is dying. The job construct that built India’s middle class is no longer sustainable,” said Mukherjea.

The JAM Trinity

Mukherjea also appreciated the government's initiative of the ‘JAM Trinity’, which is a combination of Jandhan, Aadhaar, and Mobile, through which the Centre aims to provide easy access to identity, banking, and information products for low-income groups.

This also serves as a stage for India's wave of entrepreneurship for the upcoming new entrants in the market. 

“If applied with the same intellect and grit we brought to corporate careers, entrepreneurship can be the new engine of prosperity,” he said.

Money-obsessed Society

The CIO also highlighted a concern where Indians are obsessed with stability and salaries, which define people and success through paychecks.

“We’re a money-obsessed society. We define success by paychecks. That has to change,” he said. “We should be solving for happiness and impact, not just monthly income,” said Mukherjea.

He also focused on how the cultural shift needs to take place which will draw people away from becoming a job-seeker to becoming an entrepreneur in the future.

“Families like yours and mine must stop preparing kids to be job-seekers. The jobs won’t be there,” he said.