How professional instability is shaping financial planning, career choices for Indians

“When I started my career, I was like most people. I wanted to make money, but I didn’t know what to do with it,” he says.

While the responsibilities of a new father made him start planning for the future, professional instability reshaped his financial planning. “Of course, now, whenever I am making a big expenditure, there is apprehension at the back of my mind. I always make sure that after all expenses, all investments, there is enough cash for six to eight months of household expenses in my account.” This includes not just money for running the house, but also school fees and other expenses for his two kids, as well as money to pay any existing EMIs.

Early in the recent Hollywood release, The Devil Wears Prada 2 — a sequel to the cult 2008 comedy The Devil Wears Prada, starring Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci and Emily Blunt in lead roles — Hathaway is seen attending a journalism awards event, when she and her colleagues are informed through text message that they have been laid off owing to funding cuts at their organisation. The receiving of the message coincides with Hathaway’s name being announced for an award. In her acceptance speech, Hathaway passionately declares from the podium, “Journalism matters”.

Much of the film revolves around the themes of job cuts, tightening purse strings at media organisations and the pressures of chasing the number of clicks you get on your article.

Kolkata-based communications professional Supreeta Singh has felt this fear first-hand — or nearly so — having quit a newspaper job days before the organisation folded in 2013, after its promoter was accused in a Ponzi scam.

“I had found a job as a public relations and communications professional at a city hotel and joined days before the newspaper closed down. I was saved, but I saw the state some of my former colleagues were in. They were all great journalists, many of whom had to rebuild their careers from scratch.”

Singh herself continued in the hospitality industry for the next few years, working at two more hotels before setting up her own communications firm. “Looking back, the instability of the media industry was one thing which prompted my decision to move out; also, the fact that the hotel offer came when it did. That experience was also one among many factors which later made me go independent. I feel I have more control over my work, my time, my life,” she explains.

The switch wasn’t easy. “I didn’t even own a personal laptop when I started out on my own, nor the money to buy one. I loaned money from a friend to buy a laptop,” she recalls. The fact that she had a home loan running made the shift riskier. “The first few years were a struggle. But I did manage to pay off the home loan the very next year,” she says. She has since moved to a bigger property. “It's a lot of space for a single person, but it is also an investment that I can sell off if needed,” she reasons.

While Singh’s experience is as close as it could get to the Devil Wears Prada 2 script, the media is hardly the only industry to be living under the shadow of “downsizing” and “layoffs”.

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Across industries, professionals are increasingly being forced to rethink and rewire. It has changed how people plan lives, careers, and definitely finances. No longer does the formula of enjoying the first few years of one’s working life, buying a car, a home and supporting family in the 30s and planning for retirement in the 40s and 50s work; for there is little certainty of holding the same job at 50, or making the same, or more, money. Full-time jobs may be replaced by consultancy gigs and freelance opportunities, which may bring in good money, but don’t guarantee a monthly income or perks like retirement benefits and health insurance.

Mumbai-based chartered accountant and financial adviser Chahan Vora gives the example of a pilot client. “In 2019, he was with Jet Airways when it closed down. He was later with Go Air, which also went bust. He is now with Indigo. But there was a two-to three-year period when he didn’t have a job. Even for a highly-qualified person like him, a trained pilot, there is no job security,” Vora agrees.

The Indian information technology industry (IT) has repeatedly made news by the sheer volume of job loss across companies. According to reports, the country’s top five IT companies — including TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCLTech, and Tech Mahindra — cut nearly 7,000 jobs in the 2026 financial year.

“No job is secure,” agrees Delhi-based Sunil Goel, managing director of the executive search, recruitment and placement consultancy firm, GlobalHunt. “The ones in their thirties and forties are still often more rattled by the instability [they are also the ones with more responsibilities, of family, home, assets]. The ones who are starting out have learnt to take it in their stride. They know if they lose one job, something else will open up.”

Market disruptions, the economic impact of geopolitical issues, like the Russia-Ukraine war or the ongoing tensions in Iran, play a role in the current job market instability. But the biggest worry in recent times for professionals across industries is the growing impact of AI.

“In the period following the Covid pandemic, as markets revived, many companies over hired, and then, as the industry slowed down, let resources go in 2024-25. Mid-2025 onwards, however, most layoffs have been technology-driven,” says Goel.

According to reports, AI may impact two million jobs in the Indian technology sector.

But other professions, too, may be impacted in the years to come.

According to naming consultant Shivangi Varshney, founder of the online platform Babynames, if she got about 20 to 30 clients in a month when she started out in 2019, the number has dropped to 10-15 now, “with many turning to AI-generated lists” to pick a name for their kids.

Even professions like medicine or law have not remained untouched.

“In the legal profession, AI is definitely a disruptor, but this can be both a bane and a boon. In litigation, unfortunately, time and again, the issue of AI generated drafts and case laws has made lawyers susceptible to incompetence. The younger lawyers are turning out AI-generated drafts, which are mostly incorrect and have also led to troubles in court,” Pallavi Pratap, a Delhi-based lawyer.

She adds: “However, many big law firms have successfully started developing their own AI tools, which are helping with case management, billing and other areas of practice. It will still take some time for litigation to be heavily dependent on AI.”

Last week, while addressing a national conference in New Delhi, National Medical Commission chairperson Dr Abhijaat Seth reportedly said, “we are not just adopting AI, we are adopting it at scale across a diverse healthcare system, and that brings both opportunity and responsibility", making a push for using technology responsibly and effectively.

Dr Sanghamitra Pati, additional director general, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), was also quoted as saying at the event that while “AI is not going to replace doctors, but doctors who use AI may replace those who do not”.

It is the shift most industry observers talk about, and professionals are living.

“AI will make many of the traditional jobs done by humans redundant, but it will also open up new ways of doing things. There will be friction in the short term, but eventually, new industries, new services will come up,” explains Attendra Kumar Singh, Bengaluru-based tech start-up entrepreneur, currently operating a company for AI-powered voice agents for businesses.

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In the meantime, upskilling is the buzzword across industries.

“The ones who will survive are the ones with domain knowledge, who have upskilled themselves and who are flexible — about compensation, location, nature of work. You can’t say you have been doing one thing, so you will continue to do just that,” says Goel.

No longer is it enough for employees to simply excel at their jobs; they must anticipate a future when their current skills may make them redundant and upgrade to stay ahead of the curve.

With this in mind, 36-year-old Mumbai-based working professional Baisakhi Chakraborty, who works in strategic employer branding, communication and employee experience, has, in the years since the Covid pandemic, completed multiple courses in public relations, management, digital marketing and leadership management to upskill herself. “All these were full-time courses, which I completed in the online, distance mode while balancing a full-time job. While working at my current role, I have also prepared myself for a strategy position, business strategy, to make sure I am ready to step up if needed,” she explains.

Talking about the current job market, Chakraborty adds, “Across the corporate world, there is fear and anxiety about job security. Talent retention has become about relevance rather than loyalty. Earlier, corporations would reward a long-time employee, not anymore. One has to be in cohesion with the operating model of the company and that model may change at any time depending on the market and competition.”

In such a scenario, in addition to upskilling, she says she also finds those around her a back-up plan in place, “an alternate career option if one becomes redundant in the present profession”.

The other big change is, of course, in spending and planning finances.

A report by investment company Mutual Funds last year found retirement planning to be the first financial priority for Indians, though actual preparedness dipped to 37 per cent from 67 per cent in 2023.

“Indians are very poor with planning finances, which is why they come to consultants,” says Abhishek Kumar, a SEBI-registered investment advisor and founder of the financial planning consultancy firm Sahaj Money.

He adds: “There are many triggers which make one aware of the need to plan finances — health, family issues… In recent years, job insecurity has also been a primary reason”.

On the advice that they give clients, he says, “Often we find clients to be asset-rich, but cash-poor. We always advise them to have some liquid cash in hand for any emergency; enough for about six to 12 months of expenses. Also, diversification is important; one should not park all their assets in one place.”

The other thing that Chahan insists on for his clients is to have personal medical insurance, in addition to any provided by the workplace.

Citing the example of his pilot client, he adds: “During the period that he was not working, the only thing which kept him afloat was the investments we had already made for him.”

Both recruiters and those in human resources (HR), as well as financial advisers, also insist on keeping liabilities to a minimum. This includes both EMIs and spending on credit.

“In the scenario of a layoff, the first worry that hits people is the payment of EMIs. We have noticed that those who go into depression following job loss are also likely to be those burdened with loans,” explains Divya Midha, a Delhi-based HR professional.

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For Supreeta, being liability-free and having a corpus of savings also equals independence, the freedom to say no to work that she doesn’t want to do. For many others, it means breathing space, a buffer period to seek alternative employment in case of a professional emergency.

Additionally, Khanna has also set himself a long-term savings target. “Rather than a timeline — because who knows when I will be made redundant, whether I will even manage to continue working till the conventional retirement age — I have set myself a target of how much money I should save for me to be able to always enjoy the lifestyle that I now maintain,” he explains.

He has made the calculation carefully, factoring in inflation and potential returns from assets. “There are separate accounts that I now maintain for this, for medical funds, as well as funds for my children’s future higher education,” he adds.