For decades, India’s burgeoning middle class has pinned its hopes on stable, salaried white-collar jobs—a steady paycheck, a linear career path, and the promise of upward mobility. But that era, warns Marcellus Investment Managers’ Founder and CIO Saurabh Mukherjea, is drawing to a close.
Speaking on the podcast “Beyond the Paycheck: India’s Entrepreneurial Rebirth”, Mukherjea painted a stark yet compelling picture: the traditional job market is vanishing, and with it, the very foundation on which middle-class aspirations were built.
“The hallmark of this decade will be the decline of salaried employment as a viable path for educated, dedicated, hardworking individuals,” said Mukherjea.
This is not alarmism. It’s an urgent recalibration of how India must approach employment, education, and economic growth.
AI and Automation: The Silent Job Killer
The transformation is already underway. Across IT, media, and financial services, artificial intelligence is not just supplementing human labor—it’s replacing it. Even in roles once considered safe—like software development or mid-level project management—machines are quietly taking over, with growth numbers flatlining in India’s bedrock IT space.
“Much of what was supposed to be done by white-collar workers is now done by AI. Google has made public that a third of its coding is now done by AI, and I am pretty sure the same is true for the Indian IT services companies,” Mukherjea remarked.
This erosion of job security is not just technological—it’s structural. Middle-management positions, once the stepping stones to senior leadership, are vanishing. Career ladders are now looking more like conveyor belts to obsolescence.
“The old model where our parents worked 30 years for one organization is dying. The job construct that built India’s middle class is no longer sustainable.”
JAM Trinity: Infrastructure for a New India
Despite the grim prognosis for salaried employment, Mukherjea is not all doom and gloom. In fact, he sees a bright spark amid the upheaval: India’s evolving entrepreneurial ecosystem. A critical enabler of this transformation, he notes, is the government’s JAM Trinity—Jandhan, Aadhaar, and Mobile—which has equipped millions with access to banking, identification, and digital connectivity.
“If applied with the same intellect and grit we brought to corporate careers, entrepreneurship can be the new engine of prosperity,” he said.
The JAM infrastructure, intended for financial inclusion, could prove to be the launchpad for grassroots business innovation. For India’s youth, the tools to succeed are now in their hands. But whether they use them depends on a deeper cultural shift.
Breaking the Paycheck Obsession
Mukherjea offers a searing critique of Indian society’s deep-rooted obsession with salaries and job titles.
“We’re a money-obsessed society. We define success by paychecks. That has to change,” he asserted. “We should be solving for happiness and impact, not just monthly income.”
This transformation can’t be engineered by government policy or corporate strategy alone—it has to begin in households and classrooms. The old parental aspiration—“become a doctor, engineer, or get a government job”—may no longer serve the next generation.
“Families like yours and mine must stop preparing kids to be job-seekers. The jobs won’t be there,” Mukherjea cautioned.
From Jobs to Journeys
At its heart, Mukherjea’s message is about evolution. As AI rewrites the rules of productivity and progress, the middle-class dream must also evolve—from one of predictability to one of possibility.
This doesn’t mean everyone should be a startup founder. But it does mean nurturing problem-solvers, creators, and lifelong learners. It means preparing young Indians for a world where success is not measured in salaries, but in impact, resilience, and autonomy.
For policymakers, educators, and business leaders, the challenge is now strategic: How can we support this transition from a job-based economy to one rooted in innovation and entrepreneurship?
For families, the shift is more personal: Are we preparing our children for the world that was, or the one that’s coming?
In the words of Mukherjea, “The defining flavour of this decade will be the death of salaried employment.”
The era of the salaryman is ending. What follows is up to us.”
