Much of the public conversation about AI and jobs centers on what AI is eliminating. A recent Nomura analysis offers a useful counterweight: across India's workforce, AI-linked hiring has outpaced AI-related job losses by more than 51,000 roles. Rather than producing large-scale net job destruction, the report finds AI is reshaping where demand sits — with growth concentrated in data, engineering, product, and support functions tied to building and operating AI systems.

The hiring outlook backs this up

Recruiter sentiment for 2026 is notably upbeat given the layoff headlines elsewhere in tech. 76% of recruiters surveyed expect new job creation in the first half of 2026, up from 72% in the second half of 2025, with growth concentrated in healthcare, manufacturing, and IT. Overall technology hiring — across permanent, temporary, and contractual roles — is projected to grow 12–15% this year, translating to roughly 1.25 lakh new positions. Most strikingly, 87% of recruiters surveyed said they don't believe AI will have a significant negative impact on overall employment, and 18% now expect AI specifically to create new roles, mainly in IT, analytics, and marketing.

AI hiring is growing faster than IT hiring overall

The sharpest evidence of the shift shows up in the comparison between AI-specific and general IT hiring: AI-related hiring climbed 16% year-on-year as of June 2026, even as overall IT job postings declined 3% over the same period. Looked at across 14 sectors, AI and machine-learning roles specifically grew by 25%. In other words, the jobs most exposed to AI-driven efficiency gains are shrinking at the same time the jobs needed to build and run that AI are expanding — a genuine structural shift, not just noise in the data.

What the net-positive number hides

A net gain of 51,000 roles is real, but "net positive" is a statement about the economy, not about any individual career. The jobs being created skew toward specific skill sets — applied AI engineering, data infrastructure, ML operations, and AI-adjacent product and support roles — while the jobs being displaced are often concentrated in different functions and, frequently, different people. Someone in a role being automated away doesn't automatically get routed into one of the new openings; that transition requires deliberate reskilling.

What this means practically

• The net numbers support cautious optimism, but they don't substitute for individual skill planning — being in a growing category and being qualified for roles in it are two different things.
• Data, cloud, and applied AI skills sit closest to the growth the Nomura analysis and recruiter surveys both point to, making them a reasonable focus for upskilling regardless of your current function.
• Sector matters as much as skill. Healthcare, manufacturing, and IT are where recruiters expect the bulk of 2026's new roles to appear, so job seekers open to moving across industries may find more traction than those fixed on one sector.

The headline that AI is a net job creator in India this year is genuinely encouraging, but it's a statistic about the labor market as a whole — the practical task for any individual job seeker is making sure their own skills sit on the growing side of that ledger.