Specialist AI recruitment is rising while broader white-collar hiring barely grows, fuelling concern that the technology could widen the gap between workers who gain from it and those whose bargaining power declines.
Artificial intelligence is reshaping hiring patterns in ways that may eventually affect wages, promotions and workers’ leverage in the labour market, according to reporting by India Today and comments from European Central Bank chief economist Philip Lane. Lane warned, as Reuters reported, that AI could weaken employees’ bargaining power, slow wage growth and reduce labour’s share of income. While his warning focused on Europe, the same broad question is increasingly relevant in India, where the technology is altering who gets hired, and on what terms.
The clearest change so far is in recruitment. India’s white-collar job market grew only 1% in September 2026, while hiring for AI and machine learning roles rose 20% from a year earlier, India Today reported. Recruitment for workers with zero to three years of experience also increased by just 1%, and hiring for those with four to seven years of experience fell 2%. That suggests employers are becoming more selective, with demand concentrated in specialist roles even as broader hiring remains sluggish.
The shift matters because bargaining power usually depends on alternatives. When vacancies are scarce, workers have fewer chances to switch employers, and that can make it harder to push for higher pay or better conditions. India Today also cited a Nomura report, first accessed by Bloomberg News, which found 83,100 AI-related hires in India compared with 31,921 layoffs and departures linked to AI. That points to a labour market in transition: AI is creating jobs, but not always for the same workers who are losing them.
The mismatch is important. A worker whose role is automated out of existence may not be able to move straight into an AI engineering post, because the skills and experience required are often very different. India Today also pointed to growing demand for electricians, construction workers and other technical staff involved in building AI data centres, underlining that the technology is reshaping demand well beyond software jobs. In other words, AI is not simply replacing one group of workers with another; it is changing the mix of occupations employers value.
The bigger question is what happens to pay. As companies use AI to lift productivity, they may expect employees to produce more, interpret AI-generated output and exercise better judgement, without necessarily sharing the gains through wages. Workday’s Global Workforce Report found that 28% of business leaders expected AI to reduce headcount, while 40% believed it would help them get more out of existing staff. Other recent analysis points in different directions: Indeed Hiring Lab said in September that advertised pay in US jobs most exposed to AI has been rising faster, especially for senior positions, while a separate report highlighted evidence of slower wage growth in highly exposed roles. Taken together, the picture is not of a single AI effect, but of a labour market where experienced workers may gain, entry-level applicants may struggle and employers may capture much of the immediate benefit.
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