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The answer seems to be positive if we listen to S. Gopalakrishnan, Infosys chief executive. He told the New York Times earlier this week that over the next 20 to 30 years smarter computers and increased automation could do away with many of the back-office jobs that firms have moved to India to take advantage of lower labour costs.



“As machines become smarter, they become more powerful”, declared Mr. Gopalakrishnan. He recalled an outsourcing deal which needed 300 people on the job at the beginning but only 100 after a short while. This was due to the fact that previously separate computer systems were connected to each other, thus more orders were flowing without human intervention. In addition, more orders were submitted electronically by the customer’s customers.



So the old debate about machines making some workers redundant seems to be still on. We don’t know what will be the exact issue but what is certain is that Microsoft announced another 800 human layoffs today on top of the 5000 cuts already announced in January under a costs reduction plan.