Future jobs to be driven by digital tech: Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

Automation and digital technologies will drive jobs of the future even as they cannibalise conventional employment while creating a large number of new opportunities, says biotech entrepreneur Kiran Mazumdar Shaw.

According to her, new age businesses like Uber, Ola, Amazon, Flipkart, Airbnb and Alibaba are creating millions of jobs which are several orders of magnitude higher than comparative conventional jobs.

Moreover, automation itself would create large job opportunities in the information technology (IT) space where there is likely to be an explosion of automation software development jobs, she said.

"Conventional jobs will be cannibalised by automation. However, e-commerce will create new jobs that will multiply current jobs that are in the bricks and mortar," the Chairperson and MD of Biocon told PTI.

Giving an example, Shaw said Ola and Uber have already created one million drivers with average monthly incomes of Rs 75,000 with a low capital base that makes the business model efficient and competitive.

"This has a multiplier effect on the auto industry. Likewise, e-tailing has created a supply chain that has multiplied jobs. All in all, job data must not be viewed in isolation but dynamically in terms of the changing landscape," she said.

Biocon has been rated among the world's top 10 employers in the biotechnology industry by an international science magazine earlier this month.

Conferred with the highest French civil distinction, Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honour) earlier this month in recognition of her outstanding contribution and dedication to biosciences and innovative research in the field, Shaw said jobs of the future are going to be driven by digital technologies.

"They (jobs of the future) are likely to be personalised and self-employment based. Probably the future will comprise multiplexed microjobs rather than today's one employment at a time model. What we also need to prepare ourselves for is a world where there are just not enough jobs to provide employment to all," she said.

E-businesses are the future and jobs would transition from conventional to new, Shaw, said.

Financial services, she said, has historically been the biggest beneficiary of IT services and thereby automation but it has reached a saturation point.

"Other sectors like healthcare, genomics, big data analytics, e-tailing, travel, education etc have not even scratched the surface. These are the future growth drivers of IT services," according to her.