AI eats into entry-level tech jobs as India's graduates seek work

Banks and other global capability centres are automating routine tasks once handled by fresh graduates, intensifying competition for entry-level jobs in India's tech sector

By Siddhi Nayak, Saikat Das and Anup Roy

 

Purva Jagtap graduated from her engineering college in India this year with a degree she expected would land her a dream job at a tech hub, perhaps one run by a big Wall Street bank. Her family had paid about $5,640 in tuition, twice the average annual salary in the country, hoping it would launch her corporate career. 

Instead, the 22-year-old is spending her days applying for jobs and competing with thousands of other graduates for entry-level roles that India’s so-called Global Capability Centers once minted by the millions. Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing that equation.

  

Inside the glass towers of GCCs in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune, banks like JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. are automating much of the work that once formed the bottom rung of the tech ladder: checking loan documents, reconciling accounts, writing basic code and invoicing. 

“I am worried that AI might reduce the number of entry-level jobs because it can do many things faster,” said Jagtap, who graduated from DY Patil University. “Getting that first opportunity is already difficult because there are so many people applying for the same jobs.”

 

AI is upending labor markets around the world, yet few countries have as much at stake as India, long considered a nation of coders. The information technology services sector employs about 6 million people and accounts for nearly 8 per cent of the economy. About 40 per cent of those workers, or 2.4 million, work in GCCs, which generated about $100 billion in revenue last fiscal year, according to  the National Association of Software and Services Companies and the Zinnov-Nasscom India GCC Landscape Report 2026.  The GCCs have grown so much that banks including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan have more employees in India than anywhere else outside the US.

 

All this makes India “ground zero,” for assessing the impact of AI on jobs, say analysts at Nomura Holdings Inc.

 

So far, it’s clear that a dramatic upheaval is taking place across the broader IT industry, even if there is little evidence yet of massive jobs losses at the GCCs. India’s $315 billion IT outsourcing business, led by companies such as Infosys Ltd. and Tata Consultancy Services, faces more disruption than the GCCs from the rapid advances in AI. 

A report by McKinsey Global Institute estimates that 30 per cent of job hours in India could be automated by 2030. Infosys terminated the contracts of hundreds of trainees last year, and TCS announced it was cutting 12,000 jobs worldwide, mostly in India. Hiring is so slow that these IT firms added just 17 net employees in the first nine months of this fiscal year, according to an ING research note, citing news reports.

 

“The large IT services companies used to traditionally go to campuses and hire lots of young, fresh graduates,” said Hitesh Oberoi, chief executive officer of Info Edge, the parent of India’s largest job portal Naukri.com. “That hiring has slowed down considerably.”

 

The outlook for the more than 2,100 GCCs is brighter, given that many of them are run by the global banks themselves and aren’t doing outsourcing work for third-party firms. They also tend to do more complex, value-added work for the banks’ global operations, making them less vulnerable to the AI job-reducing shift.

 

Still, the pace of hiring for entry-level jobs is slowing there too, and the nature of GCC work is changing. They’re expanding through reskilling, technology adoption and “niche” hiring, according to a 2025 report by E&Y.

 

“While traditional IT firms are hiring more cautiously, GCCs continue to expand and absorb higher-skilled talent,” Deepali Bhargava, head of Asia-Pacific research at ING Groep NV said in a recent note. “Rather than widespread job losses, the impact of AI appears to be showing up through slower hiring and changing skill requirements.” 

 

That means more work for experienced staffers adept at utilising AI, often at the expense of entry-levels jobs that recent grads like Jagtap are seeking.

 

According to a Quess Corp  report, some routine, non-tech roles in sales, finance, marketing and customer support have declined in the last two years as GCCs shift towards AI-enabled analytics and business decision support.  Certain roles within supply chain and procurement saw a decline of about 42 per cent in 2025, according to  the report from the consultancy.

 

Financial-services GCCs are increasingly looking for people with an understanding of both technology and the business it serves. The new hire isn’t just expected to write code; they may have to know how AI can be deployed, what assumptions go into a model and where a human needs to intervene.

 

As AI adoption accelerates, the GCC hiring is shifting decisively to high-value skills like AI engineers, machine- learning experts, cloud and cybersecurity specialists, said Prashant Choudhary, GCC industry leader — financial services at Deloitte South Asia. Demand is also rising for people who can design and manage AI-powered operating models across business and technology functions, he said.

 

“What we are seeing is a strong push on AI capability across every business and function,” said K Balasubramanian, Citigroup Inc.’s India CEO. “AI tools are becoming part of everyday processes, and our teams are now thinking about how people and AI agents will work together.” 

 

New York-based Citigroup has hired a net 2,000 people in India so far this year for its GCC operations in cities including Pune, Mumbai and Chennai, down from about 4,000 last year. They’ve also brought in 500 apprentices from Indian schools, proof that some students are able to find spots at the big banks. Citigroup’s total headcount in India is about 36,000. 

 

Three other bankers at global lenders said they’ve seen lower-end jobs across sales, marketing and technology becoming redundant, with managers now setting bigger sales targets by using AI. The banks are pushing existing workers to acquire new skills rather than relying on new hires, the bankers said, asking not to be identified as they’re not authorised to speak with the media.

 

JPMorgan, which employs more than 60,000 people in India, declined to comment. Goldman Sachs didn’t respond to a request seeking comment. 

Fresh Skills

That shift is creating a conundrum for India’s graduates: they’re being asked to demonstrate the experience and skills that their first job was supposed to provide them.

 

Routine tasks such as loan processing, document checks, bookkeeping, invoicing and basic coding are increasingly being automated. Much of this work traditionally gave people at the start of their careers an entry point into organisations,  according to Lalit Ahuja, CEO of ANSR, a Bengaluru-based GCC services firm. 

Ahuja expects bank GCCs to adopt a “core and flex” model, in which permanent employees form the core, while contract workers provide flexibility. Today, the mix is roughly 70 per cent permanent and 30 per cent contractual, he said. Over the next three years, that ratio could move closer to 50-50, he said.

 

That’s adding to challenges facing thousands of engineering and computer science grads emerging from some of the country’s top universities. India has the largest youth population in the world, which for years has provided a demographic dividend for the fastest-growing developing economy. The 367 million people in the 15 to 19 age group account for a third of the working-age population.

 

Pranav S. is already planning for a career that hasn’t started. The 20-year-old commerce student in New Delhi wants to enter investment or merchant banking and has JPMorgan, Barclays Plc and Goldman Sachs in mind. His job search has begun, but so far he hasn’t found anything.

 

“The interview processes have become extremely lengthy - with assessments, AI assessments and human interviews,” he said. A degree in commerce may no longer be enough to get through the door, he said, asking that his full name not be used. He expects he may need an MBA, potentially costing as much as ₹3 lakh ($31,112), before he can enter the corporate world.

Cockroach Party

The angst among India’s youth exploded into public view this year through the Cockroach Janta Party, a satirical movement sparked by a Supreme Court judge’s remark likening unemployed young people to cockroaches. What began as a social-media backlash became a rallying cry for Gen Z anger over unemployment, eventually spilling onto the streets.

 

In the two decades to 2023, roughly 5 million students graduated in India each year, while only about 2.8 million found employment, according to a report by Azim Premji University. AI threatens to make those job searches even tougher, especially with a youth jobless rate of 9.9 per cent, more than three times the national average.

 

Harshavardhan Tambe, a final-year student in Pune, is preparing for a labor market in which a conventional engineering degree may not cut it. He’s taking additional courses while studying, and expects to pursue an MBA after graduating next year.

 

His expectations are modest. Fresh engineering graduates, he says, can expect packages of about $3,600 a year. Students are willing to accept that amount because getting inside a company matters almost as much as the salary.

More Productive

Meanwhile, companies are trying to make each employee more productive. At one bank, Ahuja said, a technology program that once took 50 engineers a year to build can now be delivered by four to 10 people in about four weeks with AI. 

To help students adapt, engineering colleges are introducing artificial intelligence courses alongside computer science and IT. Interest is also growing in mechanical and electrical engineering, as well as electronics and semiconductors, robotics and aeronautics, Oberoi at Info Edge added.

 

Arindam Gupta, a 26-year old business graduate from the University of Manchester, says he wants to use AI effectively, rather than competing against it. 

 

“My bigger concern is not finding an opportunity, but being able to consistently grow in a highly competitive environment,” he said. The real challenge is staying adaptable, learning quickly and proving your value, he added.