Impact of automation/RPA on BPM/ITES employees

Union of IT & ITES Employees (UNITE)

Impact of automation/RPA on BPM/ITES employees

Impact of Automation/RPA on BPM/ITES Employees

We from the Union of IT & ITES Employees (UNITE) a registered trade union (Reg. No. 3621/CNI) of employees working in IT and ITES industry for securing rights and welfare. The recent report from Bank of America Global Research on the impact of employment due to automation, has created ripple effect of insecurity among employees. Report highlights that due to a specific stream of automation called Robot Process Automation (RPA) India based BPM/ITES companies are planning to reduce 30% of its employees, for the benefit of generating 10 times more revenue. 

We would like to highlight couple of similar reports, the first World Economic Forum’s report on The Future of Jobs 2020. It has indicated the the survey among business leaders indicate that due to automation combined with Pandemic shock, the industry would face a jobless growth. Second The International Labour Organization (ILO) projects that millions of workers will be displaced and as jobs are transformed at a greater speed.

These reports indicate that displacement of employment in massive scale is not preventable. Displacement of employment will hurt the low paid jobs like, Epublishing, Medical coding,  BPO/KPOs, etc. Social implications of this rapid displacement are increase in unemployment, reduction in the middle class, the aspiring class, and increase of inequality. We believe the role of government in this transitional period is to establish support system for the vulnerable employments. Government’s role in upholding job security, providing adequate social security to safeguard health, education for dependents and establishing free reskilling support for the transition. 

We demand the following from State and Union Governments, to improve, safeguard and protect the interest of employees, who are vulnerable and the wealth generators of the country.

  1. Enforce law of land and prevent unlawful retrenchments and direct employers to provide in work reskilling.
  2. Enact welfare board for the IT and ITES employees for providing social security during this disruptive phase.
  3. Conduct periodical tripartite meeting between employers’ representatives, government and employees unions to tackle this challenge before us.
  4. Reduce the work hours to 6 hours a day and 30 hours a week, to increase the employment, improve health and to take advantage of the automation.
  5. Increase efforts towards improving domestic BPM industry and market.

Kindly publish news about the above in your media.


Alagunambi Welkin
General Secretary