India · U.S. · Gemini · Rest of World
Yet, by March 2024, as the financial year closed, American clients began to vanish
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The cafeteria that once buzzed at 3 a.m. emptied out.
Key facts
- In September 1945, New York City froze as more than 15,000 elevator operators, doormen and porters walked off the job
- Between 2022 and April 2024, the Indian tech sector shed more than 500,000 jobs, with 425,000 layoffs in 2023 alone
- A 2026 study by Anthropic’s researchers, measuring actual AI usage patterns against Bureau of Labor Statistics employment projections, found that occupations with higher observed AI exposure
- Even jobs that once seemed safe because of their creativity or complexity are now at risk: bioengineers at 84%, mathematicians at 80% and editors at 72%
Summary
At the turn of the millennium, India became the global hub for medical transcription. By the early 2000s, the industry seemed secure. But when the reporter met Aakash (name changed) in June 2024, that promise had already unravelled. Yet, by March 2024, as the financial year closed, American clients began to vanish. New employees were brought in under “conditional retention training,” only to be dismissed weeks later (an accounting trick to show inflated headcounts to prospective clients) and workers lived in limbo. Economists have a phrase for jobs like Aakash’s: high exposure, low complementarity. In Manila, tens of thousands of Filipino transcriptionists have already been displaced. In Nairobi, call center operators now compete with chatbots for contracts that once fed families.