Knowledge workers as defined by Peter Drucker are "high level employees who apply theoretical and analytical knowledge, acquired through formal education, to develop new products or services". They acquire, manipulate, interpret, and apply information in order to perform multidisciplinary, complex and unpredictable work. They analyze information and apply expertise in a variety of areas to solve problems, generate ideas, or create new products and services. Examples of knowledge workers include professionals, scientists, educators, and information system designers. Knowledge work is characterized by the use of information, by unique work situations, and by creativity and autonomy. In the new economy, factory jobs have been replaced by knowledge work as employees are deeply engaged in providing an intangible service. As service sector applies most of the knowledge workforce, it has been the engine of growth of the Indian economy. A greater majority of the new employees joining the workforce get enrolled into this sector by default and hope to build a sustainable career without acknowledging the attendant risks.

The Indian economy is expected to end the current financial year with an annual growth rate of 8.7 per cent, a survey by the RBI among professional forecasters showed. The services sector has been at the forefront of the rapid growth of the Indian economy. Lead indicators suggest that the pace of expansion in the services sector activity is likely to be sustained. During the 2011-12 fiscal, forecasters expect the agriculture sector to grow at 3.3 per cent, industry by 8.7 per cent and the service sector by 9.5 per cent. As service sector growth is phenomenal, knowledge workers command a premium in terms of compensation. They have more job opportunities than the workforce in the old economy and hence to stay competitive knowledge workers investing in learning for professional growth. Frequent job hopping puts them in a higher orbit and at the same time exposes them to a high degree of career risk. Job hopping is quite common in this sector and hence the career will not be stable as knowledge workers need time to adapt themselves to the new work environment to give their best. There would be a variation in their home taking pay because of this unique feature in the IT and ITES sector.

But with increasing commoditization of services, there is greater pressure on the organization to increase employee productivity. This is more so because of the fact that service sector is the first to get negatively impacted by a recession and the last one to recover in an economic cycle. But after getting used to a particularly expensive lifestyle because of higher income, it is a real challenge to manage with lesser income in case of job loss/reduced variable incentives because of a economic slowdown. Hence, the knee jerk reaction would be to lap up whatever personal finance is available to make ends meet. Personal Loans, Car Loans, Credit Cards always find favor with these knowledge workers because of simple documentation, faster processing, and personalized service. These features of a financial product come at a phenomenal rate of interest that is completely ignored by the knowledge sector employees.