AI jobs loss: India’s employment landscape is under simultaneous assault from external economic shifts and internal technological disruption. On one front, US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable tariff policies have injected a level of uncertainty that forces Indian employers to vacillate between bold expansion and cautious restraint. On the other, the quiet but irreversible march of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation is reshaping employment from within.
Speaking at the third Global Industrial Relations Summit in New Delhi this July, ILO Director Michiko Miyamoto cautioned that “AI is definitely affecting our jobs and will continue to affect our jobs.” She emphasised the need to identify which occupations and demographic groups are most vulnerable, highlighting women workers as particularly at risk.
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TCS and the sign of the times
These anxieties are not abstract. A recent episode involving Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) illustrates how AI transitions are already altering India’s job landscape. The IT giant announced plans to release approximately 12,000 mid- and senior-level employees and delayed onboarding for another 600 professionals, citing the need to realign with emerging technologies and new ways of working. While the TCS CEO publicly downplayed the role of AI, framing the move as a response to future skill requirements, the implications are unmistakable: AI-led transitions are prompting structural reorganisation.
The ministry of labour intervened after pressure from labour unions, and TCS eventually assured that delayed onboarding would proceed. However, it remained silent on the larger workforce restructuring, justifying it in terms of building future-ready organisations. NITES, a trade union representing IT/ITeS workers, lodged a complaint with the government, calling the reorganisation illegal and demanding stricter labour law enforcement. Meanwhile, KITU, a Karnataka-based IT workers’ union, successfully pushed the state government to roll back its proposal to increase working hours in the sector.
A wider industrial shift
What is unfolding in the IT sector is merely the leading edge of a broader transformation. AI and automation are gradually permeating all sectors, and it is only a matter of time before their impact ripples through manufacturing and services. TCS’s aspiration to become a “lean, future-ready” organisation signals a broader shift in employment practices. As large firms adopt AI and automation, the knock-on effects will cascade down to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), which form the backbone of India’s employment ecosystem. Even minor automation in these sectors could put thousands of jobs at risk.
The real policy question is this: How can India integrate labour market concerns, industrial competitiveness, and national interest in the age of technological transformation?
Institutionalising social dialogue
The ILO’s Miyamoto raised a pertinent question: Do we need a new national platform for structured dialogue among employers, workers, and the government? This approach aligns with the ILO’s foundational principle of social dialogue—a tool for fostering inclusive and adaptive employment frameworks amid disruption.
India already has a rich, if underutilised, tradition of institutionalised labour dialogue. The Indian Labour Conference (ILC), established in 1940, is the country’s highest tripartite forum, bringing together central and state governments, employer associations, and trade unions. It has met 46 times, most recently in 2015, to deliberate on issues ranging from contract labour to social protection for the unorganised sector.
The Standing Labour Committee (SLC), which sets the agenda for the ILC, and several tripartite committees covering sectors like plantations, transport, and pharmaceuticals also exist. In total, more than 40 legal bipartite and tripartite bodies have been created under statutes such as the Minimum Wages Act and the Contract Labour Act. However, many of these bodies are now dormant, plagued by infrequent meetings and low policy impact.
The fundamental problem is not the absence of forums but their irrelevance in today’s fast-evolving labour landscape. These institutions lack the agility, mandate, and coordination required to respond to a labour market undergoing radical technological reconfiguration. They function in silos, disconnected from national and global transitions, and have ceded space to state interventionism—visible in the recent union appeals to governments to enforce compliance rather than enable conversation.
AI jobs loss: Learning from global models
Other countries are adapting faster. Bangladesh has overhauled its industrial relations framework under the “Better Work Bangladesh” initiative to centre dialogue in labour policy. Nepal has used ILO support to institutionalise social dialogue in its bilateral labour negotiations with Gulf countries.
The ILO’s 2024 report on Social Dialogue notes that peak-level tripartite bodies are essential in managing technology-induced disruptions. Denmark’s Disruption Council and Germany’s Bundestag Commission on AI & Social Responsibility are examples of national forums actively guiding transitions. Sweden has a Digitalisation Council, while Belgium and Bangladesh have developed equivalent mechanisms.
India, by contrast, has been reactive. The government of Karnataka pledged to protect jobs from AI-induced changes even as NASSCOM forecast inevitable job losses. TCS’s CEO bluntly stated that “traditional roles and skills have little shelf life,” a sentiment at odds with official assurances.
A national social dialogue council
India needs to move from firefighting to forward planning. A national-level Social Dialogue Council should be established, building on the ILC-SLC structure but going beyond it in design and execution. Unlike the episodic ILC, this council should be a permanent, autonomous body with a dedicated secretariat—much like NITI Aayog or NSDC.
It should house specialised verticals—such as a Women’s Employment Cell, an AI Transition Cell, and an Unorganised Workers Cell—to focus on specific challenges in the world of work. Regional Social Dialogue Councils should be created to complement this effort, acting as bridges between enterprise-level negotiations and national policymaking. The new Labour Codes already envision plant-level dialogue forums and regional wage floors. These provisions can be stitched into a more unified architecture.
Given the tectonic shifts underway, India should consider formulating a dedicated “Social Dialogue Policy for Employment and Labour,” as a complement to its new labour codes. The VV Giri National Labour Institute could spearhead this initiative by establishing a national cell to map existing dialogue infrastructure and assess performance across the central, regional, and enterprise levels.
As AI, automation, and global transitions reshape the employment landscape, India must act now to establish a credible, continuous, and inclusive conversation among all stakeholders. A national social dialogue compact is no longer a policy aspiration—it is a necessity.
Rohit Mani Tiwari is Regional Labour Commissioner, Thiruvananthapuram.