At a time when India’s job crisis scene is assumed to be getting worse with each passing day, an alarming report has come in which suggests that by 2040, the country will see a decline in job availability mostly due to automation by a colossal margin of 69 percent as India is set to add a young working force of close to a 160 million new workers over the course of next 20 years. In toto India will have a working population of 1.1 billion by 2040 with an average age of just 38.

As per Forrester’s ‘Future of Jobs Forecast’ report, there are some main indicators of an automation-induced job crunch which mentions that as compared to Europe and North America, the working populations in the five biggest economies which include India, China, South Korea, Australia, and Japan are at a greater risk. Another important point was that it is impossible to save 63 million jobs from being lost to automation, another 247 million jobs in industries that are more inclined to automation such as construction and agriculture also face a similar danger.

Even though the five largest economies aim to create 28.5 million new jobs by 2040 in the upcoming sectors like renewable energy, smart infrastructure and professional services, but at a time when the use of robots is being tried and tested even in sensitive sectors like medical sciences, it is estimated that some 13.7 million jobs will definitely bear the brunt across wholesale, transport and leisure industries.

The main concern here is that while the working population of China and Japan is expected to drop by 11 percent and 19 percent respectively by 2040, India on contrary will have a force beyond control during the same time.

Michael O’Grady, principal forecast analyst at Forrester stated that, “To prepare for the changes brought on by automation, the five largest economies in the Asia Pacific region will have to radically rethink their workforce strategies.”

Pertaining to the report, certain measures that need to be brought into practice from now on if we need to prepare ourselves for the future should be promoting and focusing on STEM (Science, Technology Engineering, and Mathematics) education, technology workforce training and protecting the rights of freelance workers which is a huge grey area, particularly in the Indian stream of employment.