The Hidden Threat To India's Workforce
By Jyoti Jangra
Aug 2, 2025
To investigate if your 9-5 corporate job has labour laws for your safety and well-being, Newsreel Asia producer Jyoti Jangra travels to India’s Silicon Valley—Bengaluru—to find out a quiet crisis unfolding inside corporate cubicles: the crumbling mental health and legal protections of India’s white-collar workforce.
This video traces how India’s outdated labour laws—written for factory floors, not tech corridors—have failed to keep pace with a changing workforce. It raises urgent questions: Who benefits from longer hours? Why is unionising still taboo for white-collar workers? And can India truly claim progress if its workforce is quietly burning out? Karnataka, with Bengaluru at its centre, has become the heart of India’s white-collar economy.
The state is home to over 16,000 startups and nearly 40% of the country’s IT workforce. Young professionals from across India migrate here in search of opportunity, career growth, and financial stability. But behind the façade of high-rises and tech parks lies a growing unease—marked by mental health concerns, job insecurity, and weakening labour protections.
The numbers are alarming. Nearly 9 in 10 Indians under 25 report symptoms of anxiety, and over 45% of tech workers face mental health challenges. Yet despite these red flags, the Karnataka government is proposing longer workdays—up to 12 hours—even as employees are already stretched to their limits.
Additionally, the “hire and fire” culture that dominates many corporations has left white-collar workers more vulnerable than ever. Bengaluru alone has witnessed nearly 200,000 job cuts over the last five years, with layoffs hitting the tech and startup sectors the hardest. With the rapid rise of automation and AI, job security is becoming increasingly fragile.
In this report for the Mapping India series to explore Karnataka’s economy, Jyoti explores the everyday struggles of India’s young professionals—burnout, long hours, toxic expectations, and sudden layoffs—while questioning whether our existing labour laws are equipped to protect them.