Digital economy will destroy jobs. Why do politicians want it?

Warning of a 'jobless' future, Sandeep Khanna wrote,"A perfect storm is brewing across India's industrial complex, one that will truly test the country's demographic dividend." Everyday 68,922 people, that is 2.1 million every month, attain 25 years of age. By 2025, our population will be 1.43 billion, with 690 million under the age of 25 years of age. But new jobs are not going to be created. "International Labour Organization estimates show India's employment elasticity, a common measure of how employment growth responds to GDP growth, hovered around 0.3 between 1991 and 2007. Basically, 1% of overall economic growth led to 0.3% of employment growth. That number has been falling quite alarmingly since, and now stands at only 0.15%," wrote Khanna. " Thus, the $25 billion investment by Reliance Industries Ltd in its telecom operation Jio, hasn't added to the overall number of jobs in the sector, as the incumbents have been forced to restructure their operations to trim costs." Start-ups are laying off workers, mining is employing fewer people and "Automation is driving shop floors across the world with robots replacing workers in the ratio of 1:7." A recent survey found that digitisation and Artificial Intelligence will affect Indian employees the most by cutting jobs. Another study suggests that employment will actually shrink by 7 million by 2050. Scary. So what is the answer? Labor costs are going up in China which gives us an opportunity to increase our manufacturing, but there are 3 challenges. Our laws are very restrictive, we face serious competition from countries such as Vietnam and automation. Unfortunately, industrial investment fell by 3.1% in the first quarter of this financial year. Rajiv Kumar makes a list of suggestions. Whether politicians will agree is the question. Our tax system is confusing and discriminatory, wrote Pyaralal Raghavan. Moneylenders and share brokers pay a lower rate than doctors and nursing homes. As interest rates rise in the US emerging markets face a risk of flight of capital. Corporate debt has increased from $4 trillion in 2004 to $18 trillion in 2014. Indian companies have mostly borrowed domestically but if the rupee falls they could have problems. Jayant Sinha and Arindam Bhattacharya suggest that we should forget about manufacturing and go straight to digital services. Trouble with that is that half the people will become redundant because almost half of our children are unable to read texts three classes below their level. The only solution is to reduce population urgently by targeting subsidies only to those who do not produce children. Artificial Intelligence is definitely coming. Whether it will be servant or master depends on our politicians. Dicey.