Suresh Hulikunti: computerisation in India increases employment

Assignment for Chaitra Rao

Chaitra had asked me to send her by email a write-up on the above subject during the year 2003. She wanted to participate in a Debate. Hence here is the write-up favouring computerisation that argues for increasing the employment opportunities.

Massive computerisation in India is increasing unemployment

Today I am standing here to argue that massive computerisation doesn't increase unemployment.

It is true that in the initial stages computerisation may create unemployment but in the long run it will definitely create avenues for employment to the younger generation. Massive computerisation the long run will lead to to the following:

New manufacturing units will emerge and thus new opportunities will be created.
New service units will become inevitable and this will again increase the opportunities for new job seekers.
For marketing, sales and services of products new employment opportunities will be there.
The standard of living of the people will improve and there will be good demand for consumer products and this in turn will help for emergence of new manufacturing companies and new job opportunities.
After some years due to innovation, new products will come into existence and there will be good demand for the replacement of old and obsolete items. This again will open new avenues for employment. The classic example is electronic items, telecommunication products.
Import and export of technical know-how will help a lot to get a new job directly and indirectly.
There is good scope for computerisation in so many government offices, schools, colleges, hospitals, post offices which can absorb a great number of people directly and indirectly.
The biggest potential for employment lies in the service sector, including self employment, computerisation of the service sector will naturally increase the opportunities for employment.
A wide variety of people can be absorbed in more retail sales outlets, super markets, restaurants, entertainment centres, video parks, amusement parks, education and training institutes.

Examples of creation of jobs

The use of computers in a steel plant, for example, gives rise to many other activities such as supplying the machines, software, printers, spare-parts, computer stationery such as ribbons, papers, cartridges and so on and creates services sector.Within the industrial sector, food processing is an area which has a great potential for employment generation, particularly for low skilled rural employment. Even stagnant volume of agricultural output can generate value added employment through more processing activities.

Some people are under the impression that computerisation will lead to unemployment. But this is not so. A lot of emphasis is often placed by various countries on the IT enabled services such as Call Centres, Data Entry Jobs which can be shifted to low wage countries like India. The computerisation of industries will help to increase the production and quality of the product and the cost of the product will come down. The increase in supply will help many people to market the product in a new way through advertising media.

Here though computerisation has led to cut in jobs in the industries, the increase in the production and qualitative production will give scope of enough employment generation in marketing, advertisement, servicing etc. Thus in fact the cut in jobs will be negated leading to rise in employment.

The computerisation of services will create new job opportunities. More machines will require more people to service and repair.

In the agriculture sector, the job opportunities have already reached saturation point long back. This is because the extent of land available for cultivation is limited. We can't go for an increase of land but scope is there for innovative/intensive cultivation. The source for these is computerisation. The computerisation in the agriculture sector will definitely create new job opportunities through biotechnology media.

There was an argument at the time of the green revolution that it would create unemployment in agriculture. Now we know that it is because of the green revolution we have excess food production. Exports, technical know-how of agriculture inputs have generated employment opportunities.

Diversification of agriculture from food grains to other products such as fruits, vegetables, flowers, cashews and spices which command better prices in the international market will give scope for employment opportunities. The information technology helps in getting the international market scenario to the farmers and helps them to postpone or advance the stock of cash rich products, to export qualitative products, make arrangements for cold storage facilities, etc. The diversification of agriculture in turn would create greater demand for simple industrial consumer goods and employment in those industries.

The computer learning itself gives promotion for setting up of institutes and thus creates job opportunities. Those who have learnt computer education can easily secure jobs.

Tourism is another area having excellent scope for development. Some of the nations' GDP depend only on tourism. India has a vast market in this venture and can create excellent job opportunities apart from earning huge foreign exchange to the nation's exchequer.

The biggest potential for employment lies in the service sector. There was a time when India's GDP was mainly coming from agriculture. Today nearly half of the GDP comes from the service sector. The examples of the service sector are transport, telecommunication, tourism, hospitals, institutes, advertising, data processing, consultancy, software development etc.

It is true that there is an increase in unemployment in the nation and the same is growing fast. The main reasons are as below:

High rate of growth in population, decrease in death rate.
Lack of infrastructure for development of any industry.
Poor administration by the Central and State Governments.
High level of corruption in the administration level.
Unnecessary political interference.

I am of the opinion that there is tremendous scope of creation of job opportunities especially in the infrastructure and services industry. The Central and State Governments will have to provide infrastructure, a clear policy frame, a responsive and facilitating administration and proper incentive to attract domestic as well as foreign investment in the promising areas of job creation. Needless to say, policies should also be framed for the implementation of family planning in the larger interest of the nation's economy.

GDP= Gross Domestic Product

that is, the total income earned by one nation in a year from agriculture, industry and services.

end

TO CHAITRA,

if you think this is very lengthy, then shorten the first page as below:

(that is, Point.1 to 9 change as below:)

Due to computerisation in the long run, new manufacturing units, new service units will merge giving scope for increase in supply of products. More supply leads to wider marketing, advertising, sales and services products. This would give scope for bigger job opportunities. The standard of living will improve, there will be good demand for consumer products which will further lead to wider job opportunities in manufacturing industries, retail sales outlets, hotel industry, entertainment industry, software, education in computer related areas etc.

The biggest potential for employment lies in the service sector including self employment. Service sector means transport, telecommunication, tourism, hospitals, institutes, advertising, data processing, consultancy, software development etc..

Then start from.. The examples of....

Good Luck

end- prepared for Chaitra Rao someಟೈಮ್ in 2003