AI to boost India's workforce: How 33.9 million will benefit by upskilling

AI revolution to drive 2.73 million new tech jobs in India by 2028

BRAND CONNECT | PAID POST

Published: Dec 10, 2024 04:20:36 PM IST

Updated: Dec 10, 2024 04:37:50 PM IST

Sumeet Mathur, Senior Vice President & Managing Director, ServiceNow India Technology & Business Center

Technology will transform how we work and create demand for new skills across businesses and government agencies. To stay ahead, corporate India needs to develop a learning culture and make employees future-ready, today!

As global uncertainty looms, India stands out with robust economic growth, a young talent pool, and vast job creation opportunities. Central to this transformation, AI has emerged as a game-changer for business operations and as a disruptor for the jobs market, requiring both companies and employees to adapt.

Economist Richard Baldwin famously said, "AI won't take your job. It's somebody using AI that will..." Technological advancements do not lead to a net loss of jobs in the long run. Instead, they alter workflows, shift demand across professions, and spawn new roles to address emerging needs. The challenge lies not in unemployment but in bridging the skills gap in the pursuit of organizational and professional growth.

A joint study by ServiceNow and Pearson has found that India’s workforce demand will surge by 33.89 million over the next 5 years. This growth spans sectors like retail (the largest need for 6.96 million new employees) to energy to government, all with strong technology undercurrents. Among these, 2.73 million will be driven by jobs required to implement and maintain emerging technologies.

Productivity and value to be unlocked by AI

Software Application Developers will see the greatest growth in demand at 109.7k additional jobs. On the other hand, roles like System Administrators (sysadmins) will experience the most significant shift in responsibilities. Sysadmins will be able to conserve about 6.9 hours per week by 2028, with robotic process automation handling routine, manual work, and LLM Chatbots taking over tasks such as coordinating access rights.

Workers can then use the time thus reclaimed through AI for higher-value activities, such enhancing customer experience or improving business processes.

Companies are especially keen to deploy Gen AI as a cornerstone for employees’ technical and operational efficiency. For AI systems engineers, half of their time savings—2.3 out of 4.6 hours weekly—are attributed to GenAI alone.

The challenge of AI and other skills gap

India is a world leader in AI adoption, but there is still much to be done to prepare its workforce for AI transformation. There’s a shortage of talent required to realize the full potential of AI’s possibilities, which can be plugged only by empowering the existing workers with new skills.

Upskilling and reskilling strategy in the age of AI has to consider not one but two aspects. The first is a need for hard skills, which enable employees to effectively use AI tools, and the second is for soft skills, such as critical thinking, indispensable for higher-cognitive work that staff will be expected to perform with the gift of added time in their work day.

For instance, despite minimal economic growth in the financial services sector, significant advancements in automation and augmentation are expected to drive the need for 51,000 new tech roles. To remain relevant, sysadmins whose primary remit is to say ensure systems security, will need GenAI upskilling so they can delegate insights generation to technology. The resulting increase in available time can then be redirected toward more complex responsibilities, such as developing enhanced security solutions. To fully leverage this shift, sysadmins will need targeted training to refine their problem-solving capabilities and take on higher-value strategic tasks.

A call for collective upskilling efforts

The best approach to upskilling people for human-AI collaboration is to focus on their abilities instead of “work experience”. Organisations ought to take stock of the technologies they need for tomorrow and each of their employees’ portfolio of skills, and suitably match and redeploy staff to meet new demands at office. AI tools are already here to support companies with this exercise as well.

It also makes business sense to reskill and retain the existing talent pool, as hiring new employees or consultants comes at higher costs. Employees increasingly value opportunities for professional growth; LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report 2024 reported that companies with a strong learning culture achieve 57% higher retention rates.

Another key factor in successful AI adoption is leadership involvement. ServiceNow’s findings reveal that companies leading in AI implementation often report active participation from senior management in shaping AI strategies. Tech and HR cannot drive change in silo.

Businesses must also consider partnering with educational institutions, so that the pace of workforce upskilling keeps up with AI advancements. Furthermore, should such training opportunities be made equally accessible across the country as well, the value proposition of India’s workforce would grow multi-fold.

To thrive in this era of rapid technological change, businesses must act decisively, fostering a culture of continuous learning. By doing so, they can harness India’s vast talent pool and position themselves for sustained growth and innovation.

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