Filling the gap: Roadmap for reform
This issue requires collective effort from all stakeholders, including policymakers and institutions of higher education.
• Curriculum Upgrades – The field of economics offers an immense range for technology integration such as coding, AI tools, and technical simulation using economic data.
•Related Internship Choices – Many students in the internship will be doing data entry tasks and will not learn skills as their employers feel incompatible with other jobs that require a strong technical foundation.
•Vocational Training and Certification – Encourages students to improve their employability to pursue data science, financial analytics, and AI applications certification.
• Teacher Training – All these initiatives work only if existing faculty are trained in skills such as machine learning, power BI, tableau, SQL, Python, R, etc. for statistical analysis. You also need to access professional AI-enabled tools for research and curriculum development.
India's demographic advantage offers great opportunities, but only if graduates have the right tools to thrive in a rapidly changing world of corporates.
The role of AI in transforming careers in economics
Today, the role of economists is multifaceted and requires a strong foundation for economic theory, but even stronger foundations for quantitative methods of data analysis, such as Power BI, Tableau, AI, and ML algorithms, to gain insights from data. AI is disrupting the job market, and key trends include:
• Automation in Entry Level Jobs – One of the features of AI is that it automates daily tasks to save attached costs, or reduces the human needs to perform tasks.
•Skill-Based Hiring – Companies currently employ graduates who can actually perform tasks, so earning a degree is not sure of tickets to the job. A 2024 survey by McKinsey revealed that 35% of Indian employers are currently using AI-based employment tools.
•Increasing demand for AI-enabled research and policy assessments – Individuals who can use real-time macroeconomic data and elicite interesting insights through the application of AI tools are highly sought in the corporate world.
•Surge in economic consultations and fintech jobs – Recent trends show that AI is creating very niche employment opportunities for highly skilled individuals in the fields of finance, banking and decentralized finance.
An outdated economics curriculum: global issues
Reports from the International Student Initiative for Economics and Rethinking Economics show that many universities around the world have not modernised economic education and result in global graduation of economics employment rates. It shows it:-
•75% of universities lack the meaningful integration of ecological economics and AI-driven economic analysis.
•Institutions such as the University of London and the University of Greenwich are challenging traditional neoclassical economics, promoting real-world applications over outdated models.
• Universities are unable to adapt to changing dynamics in the job market, and resistance to changing curriculum is making the situation worse.
