:00:00. > :00:09.responsible for the United Kingdom's policy on refugees.
:00:10. > :00:11.Stars from around the world have been paying tribute
:00:12. > :00:20.to the actor Sir John Hurt, who has died at the age of 77.
:00:21. > :00:23.Star of stage, TV and small screen, he was best known for roles
:00:24. > :00:25.in The Elephant Man, Alien and Harry Potter.
:00:26. > :00:27.Now on BBC News it's time for Talking Business.
:00:28. > :00:29.Rapidly growing economies - among them India - face a problem.
:00:30. > :00:32.Millions of people are joining the workforce every year,
:00:33. > :00:34.but with financial pressures and automation there just aren't
:00:35. > :00:37.So what can be done to generate more employment?
:00:38. > :00:47.That's what we're discussing on this week's Talking Business.
:00:48. > :00:52.India is the fastest-growing major economy in the world,
:00:53. > :00:54.yet it's among the slowest in creating jobs.
:00:55. > :00:56.This country is growing at a rate of 7.6%.
:00:57. > :00:59.The growth in the number of jobs being created is just
:01:00. > :01:03.a fraction of that at 1.4%, and the rate at which people
:01:04. > :01:08.are coming onto the employment market is almost double that number.
:01:09. > :01:11.It is estimated India will need 10 million jobs every year in order
:01:12. > :01:19.to employ a growing pool of young people without career prospects.
:01:20. > :01:30.And advances in technology and automation could mean more bad news.
:01:31. > :01:32.The technology is definitely going to disrupt the jobs
:01:33. > :01:37.We would have to work every day to make it happen.
:01:38. > :01:42.We have seen this massive movement, and when we worked with a lot
:01:43. > :01:45.of the companies we have been able to reduce 2000 people, 3000 people,
:01:46. > :01:48.all in their back end, and completely replace them
:01:49. > :01:49.with artificial intelligence solutions.
:01:50. > :01:54.One is an artificial intelligence experience within the store.
:01:55. > :01:57.From the minute someone walks into a store, rather than having
:01:58. > :01:59.a typical person greet him, explain the product of them,
:02:00. > :02:02.sign him up, things like that, it will all be done
:02:03. > :02:12.by an artificial intelligence screen.
:02:13. > :02:17.We've built a chatbot which can communicate with customers,
:02:18. > :02:20.so whenever you log a ticket or a query with the website
:02:21. > :02:22.saying that my cheque-book has not yet come in,
:02:23. > :02:25.now instead of a person being at the other end
:02:26. > :02:27.who will understand your query then figure out what to do,
:02:28. > :02:29.it is an artificial intelligence engine.
:02:30. > :02:31.That whole replacement is going to really change the way
:02:32. > :02:35.people are hiring now and the numbers there are hiring.
:02:36. > :02:37.You may see by 2020, I think, 100% automation
:02:38. > :02:42.Things like opening an account, signing up for insurance,
:02:43. > :02:47.all these things which required human checks and validations can
:02:48. > :02:52.So how bad is the situation actually on the ground when it
:02:53. > :03:01.Well, to discuss that we've brought together a panel of guests -
:03:02. > :03:12.Manish Sabharwal, chairman of recruitment firm Teamlease,
:03:13. > :03:13.Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairperson of biopharmaceutical
:03:14. > :03:16.company Biocon, and Mr Dilpreet Singh, who is the vice president
:03:17. > :03:21.of human resources at IBM India and South Asia.
:03:22. > :03:23.Thanks very much for being here with us today.
:03:24. > :03:26.So how bad is the situation actually?
:03:27. > :03:29.Well, I think actually, you know, there is a huge
:03:30. > :03:32.I think jobs growth is something that every economy is facing,
:03:33. > :03:37.India of course has seen that it has been a pretty tough uphill task
:03:38. > :03:41.In the last two decades we have seen 300 million people come
:03:42. > :03:44.into the job market, and less than half of them, maybe
:03:45. > :03:47.And I think this number is steadily declining, so it is...
:03:48. > :03:50.And the population is increasing, so you can see
:03:51. > :03:59.Mr Singh, your sector - IT - and if you look more broadly,
:04:00. > :04:01.services, has been a big employment generator in India.
:04:02. > :04:04.In the past four or five years, do you think that
:04:05. > :04:25.It has definitely been creating less jobs in 2015 compared to what it was
:04:26. > :04:30.error there, so overall I think -- what it was earlier. Overall it is
:04:31. > :04:33.about the number of jobs created for the GDP, the rate of job growth, and
:04:34. > :04:38.for India that has been declining. Also I think in the last decade we
:04:39. > :04:42.have had lower growth than compared to the global average so, yes, we do
:04:43. > :04:47.have a problem. I think you have to be careful with technology. When you
:04:48. > :04:52.asked this question, you said, IT has created a lot of jobs. But there
:04:53. > :04:57.is rounding error in India's River Fosse. It pays high salaries and we
:04:58. > :05:00.are proud of them for that but we do not really give a dam about them
:05:01. > :05:11.from a labour market perspective -- in India's GDP. 3 million is a
:05:12. > :05:21.rounding error... What is creating jobs in India? Services. India's
:05:22. > :05:24.farm to non-farm transitions is happening to sales, customer
:05:25. > :05:29.services, logistics, the fastest-growing segment of India's
:05:30. > :05:35.market. India is consumption driven -- domestic driven economy. We do
:05:36. > :05:39.not have the same global manufacturing opportunity China had
:05:40. > :05:46.in 1978. I do not think that is a good thing. I wish we had the same
:05:47. > :05:50.openness to trade and global chances China had for 30 years. India does
:05:51. > :05:55.not have that, so our trajectory of our job market may be more domestic
:05:56. > :06:01.consumption than export and manufacturing. So you do not agree
:06:02. > :06:04.that, you know, there are statistics which show our unemployment rate is
:06:05. > :06:09.going quite slowly compared to the country in general? Remark I
:06:10. > :06:12.disagree with that. You have added 200 million people to the labour
:06:13. > :06:16.force in the last 20 years and they have been absorbed somewhere. The
:06:17. > :06:23.jobs problem is not jobs. It is formal jobs, good jobs. I think he
:06:24. > :06:28.makes a point. If you would get the job market, yes, 50% is
:06:29. > :06:32.self-employed and 30% is casual and 20% is formal employment. So I think
:06:33. > :06:38.he makes a point of saying that the biggest problem we have is in this
:06:39. > :06:41.50 and 30% category where people probably earn less than 10,000
:06:42. > :06:47.rupees a month, you know. And I think we have a big need to keep
:06:48. > :06:51.jobs -- take jobs away from the farm and really take it out of the farm
:06:52. > :06:56.and into the services sector, into the sales sector, as he calls it. So
:06:57. > :07:00.I do agree in that respect with him that, yes, perhaps India's challenge
:07:01. > :07:05.and India's job challenge is slightly different to what you would
:07:06. > :07:08.actually discussed in other parts of the world especially in developed
:07:09. > :07:11.economies. I will slightly diverse year but everywhere I read the
:07:12. > :07:15.country when I travel, every business owner I meet, we speak
:07:16. > :07:20.about there being not enough employment generated -- everywhere
:07:21. > :07:23.around the country. But he says he is struggling to find labour, that
:07:24. > :07:29.there is this huge employability problem. Is there something you see?
:07:30. > :07:39.90,000 kids come to us for a job every month and we hire about 5000
:07:40. > :07:45.of them -- 90,000 kids. But it is a more complicated problem. It is also
:07:46. > :07:49.the lack of organisation. The jobs are being created in 50 cities but
:07:50. > :07:53.we have 600,000 villagers, and 200,000 of them have less than 200
:07:54. > :08:00.people. So the physical geography of work... Do you take jobs to people
:08:01. > :08:03.or people to jobs? It is also becoming a constraint for India. You
:08:04. > :08:08.read one of the leading bio pharmaceutical firms in the world.
:08:09. > :08:11.-- lead one off. How difficult is it for you to find people to give jobs
:08:12. > :08:16.to? That is the challenge in most industries because we want to scale
:08:17. > :08:21.up, attain global scale, and to do that you need those high-end skills
:08:22. > :08:27.in large numbers otherwise you just find it is a very small talent pool
:08:28. > :08:31.being tapped into by everybody, and therefore you're not really able to
:08:32. > :08:35.scale of the sector. Whilst individual companies can scale up,
:08:36. > :08:39.the sector does not, and you need to scale up that sector. So I think
:08:40. > :08:42.from that point of view you really need to focus on developing this
:08:43. > :08:47.large talent pool required to support such a large sector, and
:08:48. > :08:55.that is what I think India needs to do. And, you know, talking about
:08:56. > :08:58.that, only 20% formal employment in our country. What do you think needs
:08:59. > :09:05.to change for that to change, for that number to grow? For us to
:09:06. > :09:11.unleash the growth of jobs I think each of the various arms of the
:09:12. > :09:14.government body, or the biggest parts of the government body, have
:09:15. > :09:19.to really work in sync, because to me that is extremely important.
:09:20. > :09:24.Because if that is not there, you know, it will not happen. To give an
:09:25. > :09:30.example, if you were to have highly skilled people available, and you
:09:31. > :09:35.were able to do that, but if our banking is not supporting
:09:36. > :09:39.entrepreneurs to come into play, and even if the banking is supportive
:09:40. > :09:44.but the labour lows are very restrictive, right, then it will not
:09:45. > :09:50.happen, so I think it is a systems approach required if we really want
:09:51. > :09:58.to take up and grow the jobs here. Formalisation is just... It is not
:09:59. > :10:02.cultural. India is a hot habitat for intracoronary rail ownership and we
:10:03. > :10:07.have 63 million enterprises, and 12 million of them do not have an
:10:08. > :10:10.office, 12 million work from home. Only 8.5 million enterprises have
:10:11. > :10:15.any tax registration. Only 1 million are companies, but there are only
:10:16. > :10:20.18,000 companies in India with a paid-up capital of more than $1.5
:10:21. > :10:24.million. So that means nothing. But there is nothing cultural about
:10:25. > :10:36.this. I resent it when people go on about Indian informality. At best,
:10:37. > :10:38.that is the soft bigotry of low expectations and at worst it is
:10:39. > :10:41.racism. There is nothing informal about it. If you fix the regulatory
:10:42. > :10:43.cholesterol formality could go from 20% to 80% of the labour force,
:10:44. > :10:50.which is what they were attempting to do, but there will be lots of
:10:51. > :10:54.other initiatives over the next hopefully 2-3 years. What
:10:55. > :10:59.specifically do you want to see change? If we can deregulate and
:11:00. > :11:04.actually free up these new emerging industrial opportunities like
:11:05. > :11:13.e-commerce, I think you can create a large number of jobs. Companies like
:11:14. > :11:16.Uber, between them, they have created a million driver jobs, no
:11:17. > :11:21.mean feat. Although they are having a tough time with every state
:11:22. > :11:25.government wanting to rain them in. And the same is true of various
:11:26. > :11:33.e-commerce companies were again the kind of regulations are stifling
:11:34. > :11:35.them. Overall, what are we seeing? Entrepreneur, the investor, or the
:11:36. > :11:40.organisation should have the flexibility of being able to take
:11:41. > :11:43.the risk of starting the organisation -- what we saying? And
:11:44. > :11:48.if it is not going well they should be able to let somebody go to Harry
:11:49. > :11:52.later, or for example the flexibility of the labour lows will
:11:53. > :11:58.encourage organisations to adopt automation, more productive -- to
:11:59. > :12:01.hire them later. And that is more productive because it generates cash
:12:02. > :12:05.and when you have that you can reinvest into different areas to
:12:06. > :12:09.create more jobs. Mr XXX, thank you for being with us. Important to have
:12:10. > :12:15.a view from the IT sector, which India is known for globally -- Mr
:12:16. > :12:20.Singh. In the second part we will be discussing, what are the jobs of the
:12:21. > :12:26.future? But first, here is our comedy consultant with his thoughts
:12:27. > :12:31.on this week's Talking Point. I am here at Dublin city University's
:12:32. > :12:34.innovation lab, in an empty office soon to be occupied by innovative
:12:35. > :12:44.companies, and I am thinking about jobs of the future. Predicting the
:12:45. > :12:51.future is a mug's game. In fact we do not even know if there will be
:12:52. > :12:55.mugs, as they will probably be disrupted by some new receptacle. In
:12:56. > :12:57.the future, whatever happens, billions of people will arrive on
:12:58. > :13:01.planet Earth and they will need something to do to occupy their
:13:02. > :13:06.time. The question is what are the future jobs? There is nothing like
:13:07. > :13:09.being in a big empty office to concentrate the mind on what jobs
:13:10. > :13:14.might be like in the future. This is like a blank sheet of paper. The
:13:15. > :13:18.possibilities are endless. The challenge of an empty office is how
:13:19. > :13:26.to fill it with jobs, and what are those jobs going to be? Right,
:13:27. > :13:33.that's enough speculation from me. Let's top to the people who are
:13:34. > :13:41.thinking properly about future jobs. -- let's talk. The people training
:13:42. > :13:45.the next generation. This is what they call the fourth technological
:13:46. > :13:52.revolution, a combination of different technologies such as ICT,
:13:53. > :13:56.microelectronics, Nano Electronics, all coming together in a convergent
:13:57. > :14:01.way to provide new products and services, and there are skilled
:14:02. > :14:07.needs and requirements there for people having these new combinations
:14:08. > :14:15.of skill sets. Thinking about the future, it is also important to keep
:14:16. > :14:19.an ion the past. The miners, farmers and weavers of previous centuries
:14:20. > :14:22.have gradually been replaced by the marketing technicians, the product
:14:23. > :14:27.evangelists, and the strategic enablers of the present. But the
:14:28. > :14:33.march of time is inevitable, and change will continue. When you speak
:14:34. > :14:38.about new jobs, a lot of new jobs are actually evolutions of existing
:14:39. > :14:42.jobs or professions. The salesperson's roll and job is
:14:43. > :14:47.definitely evolving. Maybe we think it will be ten years from now, but
:14:48. > :14:50.many companies will struggle to just sell a product. I think the product
:14:51. > :14:53.is just a feature that delivers a benefit, and you need to be able to
:14:54. > :14:58.share in the cost of the features and also share in the upside of the
:14:59. > :15:04.benefits. We see our salespeople now as originators of deal flows and
:15:05. > :15:09.allocators of our firm's capital, and that is a vastly different way
:15:10. > :15:14.of looking at a sales position than you will get at, say, a traditional
:15:15. > :15:18.lighting firm. So on reflection it seems there is no time like the
:15:19. > :15:31.present to prepare for the jobs of the future... You can watch more of
:15:32. > :15:38.his films at bbc.com/talkingbusines. We will continue our discussion
:15:39. > :15:41.here. We are also joined by the co-founder of an online grocery
:15:42. > :15:47.delivery service. Thank you very much for being with us. I will start
:15:48. > :15:52.with you. Almost 70% of jobs in India are said to be at risk because
:15:53. > :15:58.of changes in technology. Is that something you agree with, something
:15:59. > :16:02.you are seeing on the ground? Actually I have a very myopic view
:16:03. > :16:05.because our problems are usually the other way round. We think we are
:16:06. > :16:11.creating a lot of jobs but we are not finding the right kind of people
:16:12. > :16:14.for those jobs and for us that happens at both levels, the tech
:16:15. > :16:18.level where we are trying to hire good engineers, but also on the
:16:19. > :16:24.supply level. They are helping us think a lot of people that are doing
:16:25. > :16:27.the jobs in our warehouses, for delivery, and I think a lot of the
:16:28. > :16:31.discussion happening is still relevant to us where I think we are
:16:32. > :16:38.not finding the right people for the right jobs. But I also think, moving
:16:39. > :16:41.forward, we will not see that much job contraction because of
:16:42. > :16:46.automation. I think we will see a lot more jobs created before we
:16:47. > :16:53.start losing them. With automation. Technology always poses the
:16:54. > :16:56.perceived threat of displacing jobs or shedding jobs, and actually
:16:57. > :17:00.history has shown that technology does not do that. Actually
:17:01. > :17:06.technology creates new kinds of jobs, so, you know, I think I agree
:17:07. > :17:10.with what Albinder is saying. I think it is basically about
:17:11. > :17:14.displacing certain types of jobs but creating new ones. I think that is
:17:15. > :17:17.what we should look at, so I think India has a very different kind of
:17:18. > :17:22.opportunity in terms of technology and how it is going to create a
:17:23. > :17:27.larger number of jobs than what you think will happen with automation
:17:28. > :17:32.and new technologies. Which will possibly shed and reduce jobs in
:17:33. > :17:35.other parts of the world which have highly developed logistics and
:17:36. > :17:41.supply chains, unlike India, so I think here you will see a different
:17:42. > :17:49.kind of effect. You know, you started a start up here in India. Do
:17:50. > :17:54.you think that is creating that sector... That sector is creating a
:17:55. > :17:58.lot of jobs? Four years ago we were nonexistent and now we employ 2000
:17:59. > :18:04.people. I think that is job creation but if you look at the life cycle of
:18:05. > :18:07.a company, the start-ups also die in this country because of different
:18:08. > :18:11.factors. Three and a half years ago we went to a bank, we were
:18:12. > :18:18.profitable small company and asked for alone to buy a cargo hold and we
:18:19. > :18:21.were denied because they said the company needs to be two years or
:18:22. > :18:25.older and that was one of those points where we thought, how do we
:18:26. > :18:29.scale up from there? I had to borrow the money from my dad to buy a
:18:30. > :18:36.second-hand car. So there is no support. I think there can be and
:18:37. > :18:39.huge employment generator. A lot of people in the start-up sector have
:18:40. > :18:42.already built companies, examples of that that have gone on to create
:18:43. > :18:46.thousands and thousands of jobs, and I think we can have it but we need
:18:47. > :18:49.to make sure the smaller companies survive. There needs to be an
:18:50. > :18:53.environment for them to be nurtured and moved to the next stage where
:18:54. > :18:57.they can be significant employment generators. On the one hand we talk
:18:58. > :19:00.about the fact we are not generating enough employment but everywhere I
:19:01. > :19:03.have gone across the country, and I met business owners always
:19:04. > :19:07.complaining about the fact they cannot find enough workers. I
:19:08. > :19:12.totally agree. A lot has to do with regulation. I think a lot also has
:19:13. > :19:17.to do with more social logical change. Especially with the cities,
:19:18. > :19:20.where the early urbanisation is happening, we see a lot more
:19:21. > :19:24.formalisation of the economy happening in the bigger cities. But
:19:25. > :19:33.at the moment we need to set up warehouse in second-tier city, or
:19:34. > :19:37.people to work as package boys are delivery boys, big chunk of women
:19:38. > :19:41.workers with degrees who do not want to do anything outside the house...
:19:42. > :19:47.Even a lot of educated men would prefer to sit at home and not do
:19:48. > :19:52.anything because they are not really dealing with the pressure of earning
:19:53. > :19:56.a wage everyday, so we don't end up finding a lot of workers there. Is
:19:57. > :20:01.there any prediction you can make at all as to which Indian jobs are
:20:02. > :20:06.safe... Future proof? Let's not try to predict where jobs will be, but
:20:07. > :20:09.let's try to make India self-healing. Reduce regulatory
:20:10. > :20:15.cholesterol and improve human capital. It is's came to predict
:20:16. > :20:18.where the jobs will be. Make the job market and education system
:20:19. > :20:21.self-healing, because India's scale is something no country in the world
:20:22. > :20:28.has faced before. I still believe there are many technology jobs that
:20:29. > :20:32.are future proof. I think software, for example, but it is a very small
:20:33. > :20:35.part of the job. If you want to look at future proofing, I think these
:20:36. > :20:40.are the kind of jobs that will always be in demand, but then having
:20:41. > :20:44.said that, you know, there are many other opportunities for a country
:20:45. > :20:49.like India, and what do you define as the future? For India I think we
:20:50. > :20:56.can sort of sustained job growth, probably for the next 20-25 years
:20:57. > :20:58.without a problem, but is that the future you are speaking about? You
:20:59. > :21:02.really cannot predict beyond that, because you really do not know what
:21:03. > :21:05.it is going to look like in terms of the job market and job
:21:06. > :21:09.opportunities, but future proofing India for the next 20 years is
:21:10. > :21:14.extremely important, and I think this is where a lot of these jobs
:21:15. > :21:19.being spoken about will come from. And we need to basically strengthen
:21:20. > :21:24.that system to enable it. As someone who is part of that new sector
:21:25. > :21:28.coming up, the new online enables sector, if I may call it that, what,
:21:29. > :21:33.according to you, are the jobs of the future? Do you see different
:21:34. > :21:36.jobs of the future? Actually I think my view would be that the future
:21:37. > :21:42.proofed jobs are probably more in the food sector than in technology
:21:43. > :21:45.so far. And that scale much bigger in food because we need to produce
:21:46. > :21:50.food for a lot of people and we see that as a sort of broken supply
:21:51. > :21:53.chain, our farms are broken, the supply chain is broken, we waste a
:21:54. > :21:57.lot of that and have a lot of hungry people. So I think jobs in that
:21:58. > :22:01.sector will always be there. E-commerce, we will see how the next
:22:02. > :22:08.five years player, whether we are significant enough or not in the
:22:09. > :22:12.end. But clearly the three industries, education, health care,
:22:13. > :22:15.construction. And sales, customer service and logistics. If you divide
:22:16. > :22:21.it functionally that will be across many industries, and just given
:22:22. > :22:26.health care, education, construction, they will employ away
:22:27. > :22:31.smaller number in India today than they well. That is it from this
:22:32. > :22:33.edition of Talking Business in Bangalore. Do join us again next
:22:34. > :22:56.week. It is turning milder across the UK
:22:57. > :22:59.but it will be a slow process. Northern parts of the country, not
:23:00. > :23:00.the mild. In fact it