Two New Papers Quantify AI's Impact on India's Labour Market With PLFS Data
ravi_iitm · x · 2026-10-26
Two recent papers dissect AI's impact on India's labour market: Mahambare's team analyzes PLFS job data to quantify how many jobs AI will help or replace, while Ravi IITM's team factors in tasks, AI capability, and crucially cost.
- High AI-exposed occupations rose from 21.1% of employment in 2012 to 24.6% in 2025; complementary roles (doctors, teachers, engineers, managers) grew from 5.3% to 7.6%.
- Substitution-pressure roles (sales, clerks, customer service) hit 11.4%, 69.9M workers; total AI substitution/automation-exposed employment reaches 197.4M.
- The papers map two regimes and seven impact pathways with Indian examples: cheap "good-enough" AI for GST bookkeeping and BPO voice support, frontier-dependent costly uses like CT/MRI radiology triage, regulatory-necessity roles like statutory audit sign-off, and capability-gap work like code-switched support calls.
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