The wage age is over.
It is the franc warning of Saurabh Mukherjea, founder and CIO of Marcellus Investment Managers, who considers that India enters a new economic phase – an economic phase where traditional white collar jobs are shrinking, and salaried employment is no longer a reliable route for educated and motivated Indians.
Speaking on a recent podcast, Mukherjea said that the determining theme of this decade will be “the gradual disappearance of salaried employment as a valid avenue”, citing twin pressures of Automation led by AI and an intermediate management structure collapsed in all industries.
“Google says that a third of its coding is already done by AI. The same goes for Indian IT, media and finances,” noted Mukherjea. Even surveillance roles – the bastion of intermediate level business careers – are eroded by technology. “The old model where our parents worked for 30 years for an organization die. The construction of jobs that has built the Indian middle class is no longer durable. ”
But rather than despair, Mukherjea sees the opportunity, especially in Jam Trinity: Jandhan, Aadhaar and Mobile. It attributes to this trio to democratize access to identity, banks and information, in particular for low -income Indians, and to prepare the way for a wave of entrepreneurship. “If applied with the same intellect and the same grain that we have brought to business careers, entrepreneurship can be the new engine of prosperity,” he said.
He also challenged the societal obsession with stability and wages. “We are a company obsessed with money. We define success by pay checks. This must change,” said Mukherjea. “We should resolve for happiness and impact – not just a monthly income.”
India, he argued, has talent and tools to create thousands of micro-entrepreneurs. But what is necessary now is a cultural change – moving away from Kota Coaching, JP Morgan Dreams and the fear inherited from failure. “Families like yours and mine must stop preparing children to be job seekers. Jobs will not be there. ”
