What AI means for Australian jobs: new government report shows who's most at risk

The federal government has released its first formal study of how artificial intelligence might reshape Australia's job market — and the findings don't fit the usual predictions about who should be worried.

University-educated workers and women are concentrated in jobs most exposed to automation, the report found. The occupations facing the least risk include tradespeople and aged care workers The Guardian.

The Office of the Chief Economist released AI and Employment in Australia on 8 July DEWR. This marks the first time Canberra has done this kind of systematic tracking, with plans to publish updated findings regularly.

What the report actually says

The headline claim will get repeated in Parliament: AI hasn't caused widespread job losses in Australia yet. That's true, but it's worth treating it as a snapshot of right now, not a prediction of the future.

The report uses a tool called routine cognitive tasks — basically, repetitive thinking work that AI is good at — to rank which jobs are most exposed. Jobs flagged as highest risk include telemarketers, call centre workers, clerks, retail managers, software programmers, accountants, receptionists, and marketing professionals. These roles tend to employ more women and university graduates.

Jobs flagged as lower risk include tradespeople, aged care workers, carers, truck and forklift drivers, cleaners and gardeners. These workers are less likely to have degrees and more likely to have completed vocational training.

That's worth noticing. The usual advice in Canberra is that education — especially university — protects your job. But if AI is best at automating the routine thinking tasks in accounting, marketing and clerical work, that advice might need updating. A trade certificate could be a safer bet than a university degree, at least when it comes to automation risk.

The politics of releasing this now

Employment Minister Amanda Rishworth responded by framing the report as a reason for government support, not alarm. "We are determined to ensure AI is harnessed to create good jobs, not threaten them," she said, promising Australians would get "the skills, training and pathways needed to adapt and benefit" The Guardian. It's standard ministerial language — reassurance plus a promise — and it will only be tested when next year's update comes out.

The report also includes a warning worth taking seriously. It quotes Dario Amodei, chief executive of AI company Anthropic, predicting that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs and push unemployment to between 10 and 20 per cent in one to five years. That's an alarming number to include in an official government document, especially coming from an industry insider rather than a critic. It gives the opposition and crossbench concrete figures to throw back at the minister.

There's a deliberate timing here too. The government was planning to release updated AI regulation plans — covering industry rules, economic policy and safety guardrails — in the week after this report dropped The Guardian. Publishing the jobs data first gives the government evidence to point to when it announces those guardrails. It lets them frame regulation as a measured response to labour market risk rather than a reaction to industry lobbying or public worry.

What to watch next

The real question isn't what this report says — it's what the government does with it. The commitment to "regularly report" on these trends could mean one of two things: a annual press release, or an actual tracking system that shapes policy on retraining funding, visa settings for AI workers, and workplace disputes over automation. Which one it turns out to be will show whether Canberra is serious about this or just managing the headline.