Chennai: The private sector must share the cost of developing the talent pipeline, as freezing entry-level hiring to optimise for short-term margins will hollow out the future workforce, chief economic adviser (CEA) V Anantha Nageswaran said on Sunday.Speaking on the impact of AI on jobs, he noted, “For instance, the government can encourage this through transparency, by asking large listed companies to report on entry-level hiring and training… As we wrote in the economic survey, if companies do not optimise the introduction of AI over a longer horizon and if they do not handle it with sensitivity, the demand for policy intervention and the demand on fiscal resources to compensate will become irresistible.”“If every firm hires fewer juniors and poaches experienced staff from others, the pipeline of future experts will run dry. A country that trains its young very well will engage the world from a position of strength,” he added.The CEA outlined three strategic advantages India holds to manage labour market disruption from AI- agro-processing for global demand, labour-intensive manufacturing, and human-touch roles such as elder care, mental health counselling, childcare, sports coaching, culinary arts, healthcare, and hospitality. Because these roles are insulated from AI, skilled Indian workers in these fields will remain valued both at home and abroad.He was speaking at the release of a research paper on AI and workforce automation by the Centre for Finance and Economic Research, Great Lakes Institute of Management. While many reports are written based on Western job data, this study mapped exposure using domestic data, which includes the periodic labour force survey 2025. It found that nearly 197 million workers are in occupations vulnerable to both AI and conventional automation.It said routine occupations disproportionately affect the young, accounting for 39.4% of workers aged 15–24, compared with 29% for the 45–54 cohort and 24.2% for those aged 55–64. Meanwhile, about 46 million workers stand to gain from AI through higher productivity, with Maharashtra, Haryana, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu recording the highest shares of workers in such complementary roles.
