AI Job Apocalypse: Plumbers Now Outearn Entry-Level Techies in India

The Irony of India's Labor Market

The fear that artificial intelligence (AI) could hollow out technology jobs is arriving at a moment of deep irony in India’s labor market. Entry-level tech professionals, once symbols of upward mobility, are now being out-earned by home service workers on gig platforms such as plumbers and electricians—a reversal that would have seemed unimaginable a decade ago. Against this backdrop, a dramatic global selloff triggered by Anthropic’s latest AI release has sharpened anxieties about whether the tech sector itself is heading toward a reckoning, and whether entry-level white-collar jobs will bear the brunt of it.

The "SaaSpocalypse" Triggered by Claude Cowork

On Wednesday, the launch of Claude Cowork by AI giant Anthropic set off what brokerage firm Jefferies described as a “SaaSpocalypse.” Global software stocks lost an estimated $285 billion in market capitalization as investors reacted to the implications of the new tool. Cowork allows multiple humans and AI agents to collaborate in a shared digital workspace, automating workflows across legal, sales, marketing, and data analysis. Market fears stemmed from the belief that such agentic coworkers could replace human employees, and potentially the software companies that sell tools to them.

India’s Entry-Level Squeeze

These global anxieties intersect sharply with India’s domestic realities. Entry-level tech salaries in India are already low, and evidence is emerging that technology professionals are being outpaced by skilled manual and service workers.

Home services platform Urban Company (UC) has said its partners earned an average net income of Rs 28,322 per month during the first nine months of FY26, according to its Partner Earnings Index released on Wednesday. In a post on X, Abhiraj Singh Bhal, cofounder and CEO of Urban Company, said the data points to a “quiet but important shift toward dignified, skill-based work.” He added that these earnings are well above statutory minimum wages and on par with or better than entry-level IT salaries.

Urban Company said entry-level IT and ITeS salaries are assumed at Rs 4 lakh per annum, based on publicly available industry data including Glassdoor estimates. The earnings gap widens at the top end of UC’s workforce. The top 20% of service professionals earned an average Rs 42,418 per month, the top 10% earned Rs 47,471, and the top 5% earned Rs 51,673.

In this context, AI-driven disruption threatens not just job security but the economic rationale of pursuing entry-level tech roles at all, particularly if automation suppresses wages further or eliminates junior positions altogether.

6 to 12 Months: Amodei’s Stark Timeline

The tech stock selloff amplified attention on statements made by Anthropic founder and CEO Dario Amodei, who has been unusually blunt about AI’s labor implications. Speaking recently at the World Economic Forum, Amodei said, “We’re 6 to 12 months from AI doing everything software engineers do.” His remarks reflect a broader view that AI is no longer just augmenting technical work but rapidly approaching full substitution across many white-collar roles.

Amodei has repeatedly warned that significant job cuts could occur within five years, particularly affecting entry-level roles in technology, finance, law, and consulting. He has urged consumers and US lawmakers to prepare for this shift, while criticizing governments and AI companies for “sugar-coating” what he sees as an unavoidable reality. “Most of them are unaware that this is about to happen. It sounds crazy, people just don’t believe it,” he said.

In a recent article, Amodei sharpened the forecast further. “My prediction for 50% of entry level white collar jobs being disrupted is 1-5 years, even though I suspect we’ll have powerful AI (which would be, technologically speaking, enough to do most or all jobs, not just entry level) in much less than 5 years,” he wrote.

Industry observers echo this concern, warning that as agentic systems mature, they could move beyond junior roles and begin displacing mid-level jobs in consulting, IT services, legal process outsourcing, and corporate services.

Why AI Job Disruption May Differ from Previous Ones

Amodei argues in his recent article that AI differs fundamentally from previous waves of automation. While mechanized farming and industrial machinery displaced workers in specific sectors, they also created new industries that absorbed labor elsewhere. AI, he suggests, may not follow this pattern.

Amodei identifies three defining features. The first is speed: AI progress is unfolding far faster than past technological disruptions, giving workers and labor markets little time to adapt. The second is cognitive breadth. Unlike tools that automated narrow tasks, AI systems are increasingly matching humans across a wide spectrum of mental work, from coding and legal analysis to strategic reasoning. The third is general labor substitution. If AI can perform many cognitive tasks, it may also take on the new jobs that traditionally emerge after automation, compressing the labor market rather than reshaping it.

These features undermine the traditional promise of retraining. If AI systems can quickly learn new skills at scale, displaced workers may find that the expected new jobs of the future are automated almost as soon as they appear.

Transformation, Not Extinction?

Despite the alarm, leaders in India’s IT services sector argue that AI will reshape work rather than erase it. Cognizant chief executive Ravi Kumar S struck a more measured tone at the company’s earnings briefing. “Any disruption will ‘take away jobs of the past and create jobs of the future’,” he said. “Old software will get modernized, and technical debt on enterprise landscapes will be rejigged. But tech service companies have yet to capture the ‘drift value’ from AI-infrastructure companies, leaving room for system integrators to grow and evolve towards an ‘AI builder’ strategy.”

Happiest Minds Technologies chairman Ashok Soota echoed this view, as quoted in a recent ET report. He said all platforms and plugins will expand, not diminish, the role of services companies. Innovations such as Cowork lower barriers to building software but increase the need for firms that can guide enterprises through large-scale transformation, integration, governance, and orchestration, said Soota, a Wipro veteran who cofounded Mindtree.

In the counter perspective, tools like Claude Cowork are not job killers but catalysts, shifting demand toward higher-order skills in AI architecture, compliance, and organizational change management.

The tension between these two narratives—mass displacement versus structural evolution—defines the current moment for the global tech workforce. What makes the debate especially urgent in India is the new reality of entry-level employment, where salaries are already under pressure and alternative forms of skilled work—such as plumbers and electricians—are becoming more remunerative.