The Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry in association with Telegraph co-sponsored by ITC, International Combustion and LIC, organized the next edition of its “Think” Lecture series with Mr Marc Saxer, Resident Representative India, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung on 5th July 2017 at The Bengal Lounge.

While Mr. Sutanu Ghosh, President introduced Mr. Marc Saxer to the august audience and delivered the welcome address, Mr. Deb A Mukherjee, Chairperson, Energy & Environment Committee and Emerging Areas Committee, BCC&I also talked briefly about the context of the lecture series, referring to how the previous speakers have left behind food for thought with the Audience.

Speaking at the Session, Mr. Saxer spoke about the consequences of digital economy particularly on the labour force. In the initial part of his talk, he showed how capitalism faces profitability crisis due to sluggish demand. Since the consumption demand falls, he elaborated on the four supply side strategies evolved to tackle this problem - Automation, Globalization, Neo Liberalism and Financialization - which has led to various problems like polarization of the labour market, problem with employability, and the widening of the social gap. According to MrSaxer, in India, 69% jobs have a direct effect of digitization. Mr. Saxerspoke about opening of the new automated plant of Maruti Suzuki and BMW in India. While these may not create an immediate crisis in the employment market, according to MrSaxer, eventually, a highly population-rich country like India would lose their competitive advantage and even the FDI in manufacturing plants would be shifting towards the West and other lucrative regions. Mr. Saxer clearly mentioned how Automation led to dampening of the competitive advantage of cheap labour, slowdown or off-shoring, premature deindustrialization, jobless growth and end of manufacturing led growth. He observed that De Globalisation also contributed to disintegrated global value chains, slowdown of labour arbitrage, closing of export market and eventual end of export led growth. To create jobs for a country with a huge growing population like India, Mr. Saxer suggested a few paths like leapfrogging into service led growth, green growth, domestic market led growth, blue economy and the importance of human economy. He also suggested that there would not be enough jobs in the digital economy for everyone; humans in the near future will need to collaborate with machines and join hands together in some complementary and supplementary basis which will in turn make way for newer avenues of employment - like jobs arising from energy and natural resources. The human economy will unleash the potential of human capital, he mentioned.

The session concluded with Mr. Deb A Mukherjee delivering the formal vote of thanks and Mr. Sandip Chaudhuri, Co-Chairperson, Marketing and Brand Committee, BCC&Ipresenting the memento to Mr. Marc Saxer.