'White-Collar Crash Underway': Saurabh Mukherjea Warns India Is Losing Tech Jobs Fast
The most acute risk is in tech and customer experience, India’s biggest private-sector employers, accounting for 8 million jobs.
India’s white-collar job engine is stalling and the middle class is in the line of fire. Once-booming sectors like tech and customer experience are now shedding roles, warns Saurabh Mukherjea.
“White-collar jobs used to grow at 11% a year. Now it’s just 1%,” said the Marcellus Investment Managers founder on a recent podcast. “What used to double every six years has flatlined. That’s dramatic stagnation.”
Between 2010 and 2020, India’s white-collar employment surged, powering upward mobility across cities like Bengaluru, Pune, and Hyderabad. But that trajectory has reversed. From 2023 to 2025, growth in these jobs has plunged to just 1% per year.
The most acute risk is in tech and customer experience, India’s biggest private-sector employers, accounting for 8 million jobs. Mukherjea cited a recent report by NASSCOM, Boston Consulting Group, and NITI Aayog projecting that 2 million jobs: 25% of the total could vanish by 2031 in a worst-case AI disruption scenario.
“This is not some speculative forecast,” Mukherjea said. “This is top-tier analysis from credible think tanks and consultancies.”
And it’s not just about future risk: cracks are already visible. India’s IT sector, which grew at 16% annually for a decade, is now shrinking. Job growth has turned negative, falling by 1% annually. “We are losing 10–12% of tech jobs every year,” he said.
The dominoes are already falling. TCS cut 12,000 jobs in 2023, small relative to its total workforce, but symbolically significant. HCL Tech’s CEO has openly targeted doubling revenue with half the headcount, signaling deep structural shifts. Meanwhile, the World Bank’s South Asia Development Update reported a 20% drop in job postings for tech and customer experience roles due to the rise of generative AI.
“The NITI Aayog report is the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Mukherjea warned. “It’s a stack of red flags and they all point in the same direction.”
Beyond tech, sectors like media, finance, law, and logistics may soon feel the same squeeze. “India’s middle class is in the crosshairs,” he said. “This is no longer a forecast, it’s a live event. The question now is how we respond before the damage becomes permanent.”
