The presentation is on the future of work in urban India, the challenges faced by the different stakeholders in the urban ecosystem and the creation of collaborative ecosystems as a mechanism to help better discover-design-deploy- disseminate problems and their solutions for the future of work in urban India

1. ENHANCING SOCIAL
ACCUMULATION OF KNOWLEDGE
IN URBAN INDIA
Collaborative Ecosystems for the future
Assignment Submission for World Bank’s Future of Work course
Submitted by Kuhan Madhan

2. Snapshot:
Future of
Work in
Urban India
Indian cities will host around 500 million citizens and cater to
75% of the Indian economy
Urban agglomerations will be centres for job creation and
economic growth
Rising levels of unemployment for youth with secondary and
below education levels; Declining growth outlook
Significant gaps in wages between highly skilled and semi-
skilled workers perpetuating severe inequality
Challenges of urbanisation coupled with climate change & resource
constraints, impacting quality of life for lower quintiles
Global rise in protectionism, increasing gig and superstar
aggregator firms with race-to-bottom competition impacting
wages and social protection for workers

3. India: Jobs Lost
& Gained
◦ Significant population displaced
and need to switch occupations
◦ Impact on secondary school and
associates highest
◦ Significant job additions in
Manufacturing, Construction,
Accommodation & Food
services(2030)
◦ Skill development required to
align labour pool to sectors
◦ Industry 4.0, brownfield shared
economy in buildings & service
aggregators pose challenge to
employment
Source: India snapshot, Jobs Lost,
Jobs Gained: Workforce Transitions
in a Time of Automation, McKinsey
Global Institute, 2017

4. Ecosystem challenges: What ails the
future ?
Salience about
changing nature of
work and impacts
not fully realised by
public and hence
governments have
passed the buck to
other stakeholders
Non-responsive
regulation to new
and upcoming
business ecosystem,
especially, gig &
rental economy,
industry 4.0 etc
Collaboration with
stakeholders in the
urban ecosystem is
absent or one-off,
resulting in
misplaced policies
and investment
Poor quality of
data, untimely
collection has
increased
information
asymmetry across
stakeholders;
Fudging of data by
institutions for
political benefit
Skill development
focuses on
enrolment rather
than learning
outcomes
Applied research
on future of work,
skill-development,
social protection is
near absent or
poorly
disseminated
Systematic
absent to problem
solving; Absence of
strategic institutions
and poor capacity
at city or district
scales of
governance

5. Collaborative ecosystems: Empowering
stakeholders for FOW decision-making
◦ Promoting and designing platforms for collaboration of different stakeholders in the urban
ecosystem to discover-design-deploy-disseminate solutions to challenges
◦ Strategic institutions at the urban scale to identify critical areas of intervention and advice
government, businesses, academic institutions & interest groups
◦ The institutions to help tap into partnerships between industry bodies, educational institutions and
interest groups to skill, re-train individuals on future jobs
◦ Utilise platforms to help businesses and industries to communicate with labour pool & consumers to
design more inclusive products and services
◦ Help identify potential job categories in upcoming areas viz, circular, rental, gig & green economy,
industry 4.0 etc. and tie them to the economy
◦ Build platforms for effective data collection to increase information symmetry among stakeholders
◦ Identify improvements in physical infrastructure to aid in mobility of labour: cheaper housing,
transport, co-working spaces
◦ Help build social protection programs in collaboration with the ecosystem to help in transition,
survive shocks and sustain

6. Challenges to change
◦ Social capital at urban scales is underdeveloped, identifying common incentives for
collaboration will be a herculean challenge
◦ Path-dependencies and lock-ins within government agencies is a significant hindrance to
change management
◦ Power dynamics between stakeholders is a troublesome aspect as most stakeholders see each
other as competing and dominant
◦ Businesses and industries are wary of engaging with external stakeholders on aspects related
with their operations, automation strategies and labour scenarios
◦ Regulatory capture by elites and superstar firms which has made priorities exclusive on future of
work
◦ Level of informalisation in the economy, financial constraints to medium and small scale
enterprises & lack of thematic funding to focus on FoW challenges

7. Stakeholder
buy-in: What
brings them
together?
◦ Social accumulation of knowledge is enhanced through collaboration and
knowledge transfer providing solutions to challenges
◦ Government, at all scales of governance, benefit from ideas and capacity from the
ecosystem on challenges of FoW
◦ Businesses get access to information on labour arbitrage, market incentivising
regulation and consumer feedback on products & services
◦ Interest groups and citizens are better informed of policies and aid in direction of
FoW
◦ Educational institutions benefit from applied research and curricula of the future
◦ Social protection programs and mechanisms of funding them can be arrived
through better targeting from data and strategic investment
◦ Potential jobs from new business models and green economy to boost
sustainability, quality of life and economic growth at the frontier