With half of its population under 25 and the unemployment rate at four-decade high, India faces an uncertain future. The question on young people’s minds: what kinds of jobs will we have? Quartz asked leaders across India’s biggest industries about that one job in their company or field that will be the most crucial in the coming decades.
Job cuts have become the new normal in the Indian tech industry. From Paytm to Ola, and Cognizant to Infosys, startups and industry giants alike have been laying off staff in the past year. Despite the churn, the startup sector is poised to create 125,000 direct jobs and 400,000 indirect jobs by 2025. The net impact of automation on jobs is unclear. While the Indian staffing federation expects 3 million jobs to be added around AI, machine learning, IoT, data science, analytics, big data, blockchain and augmented reality, experts estimate only 10 new jobs for every 100 labour-intensive roles that AI replaces.
Sairee Chahal, the founder and chief executive officer of woman-only social network SHEROES, told Quartz:
We’re building the “women’s internet”—this means reimagining the internet as we know it for women users, making it safe, high empathy, high trust, constructive, and relevant. So we’re always looking for high-empathy product managers, preferably women, who can relate to the problems we’re attempting to solve. Connecting the dots between technology, the internet, and women, and backing it up with a combination of empathy, authenticity, depth, and playfulness, is in high demand here. The bigger idea is to develop a massive pipeline for the next generation of professionals building the women’s internet. We’re already doing this via our “women in tech” campus lead programs, communities, and workshops.
Sairee Chahal is a Quartz Pro, where she joins other top business thinkers and doers who regularly contribute insights on the news as part of the growing membership community. To read more of her contributions and thoughts, download the Quartz app.