Women and university graduates in Australia most at risk of losing jobs to AI, report finds

Artificial intelligence has yet to cause widespread job losses but the federal government has warned that telemarketers, advertising staff and accountants are among the occupations “most exposed” to being replaced by the technology.

According to a first-of-its-kind national report, people in the more exposed occupations are more likely to be women and have university qualifications.

They include clerks, retail managers, software programmers, accountants, receptionists and advertising and marketing professionals, according to data from Jobs and Skills Australia (JSA) contained in the AI and Employment in Australia report.

Jobs deemed as the “least exposed” to AI displacement are filled by those with the lowest level of university qualifications and the highest level of vocational training, including tradespeople and aged care workers.

Next week, the Albanese government is expected to reveal updated plans on how to regulate and manage AI in a wide range of areas, including industry, the economy and safety guardrails.

“Artificial intelligence could yet reshape the jobs market in Australia, but this report shows labour market conditions remain strong by historical standards, youth outcomes have mostly held up, and occupational reshuffling has not accelerated,” said the employment minister, Amanda Rishworth.

“[The] government is determined to ensure AI is harnessed to create good jobs, not threaten them. We will continue to make sure Australians are supported through this change, with the skills, training and pathways needed to adapt and benefit.”

The report is the first time the government has tracked this data and it will continue to monitor and report trends regularly.

Telemarketers and call centre workers were among those classed as the most exposed, with the report saying the highest-risk roles were “routine cognitive jobs … as their tasks are most able to be automated by generative AI”.

Those with the lowest exposure to AI displacement include people in “manual” jobs, such as carers, tradespeople, truck and forklift drivers, cleaners and gardeners.

The report quotes Dario Amodei, the chief executive of Anthropic – which is seeking to make multibillion dollar investments in Australia – who claimed AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white collar jobs, increasing unemployment up to 10% to 20% in the next one-to-five years.

In addition to the jobs exposure data from JSA, the report also quotes Anthropic’s economic analysis, which classes call centre workers, sales representatives and information and communications technology technicians in their top five most-exposed roles.

There is evidence from the US that firms are replacing graduate intakes with AI, but the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations said in its report: “We do not see this in the Australian data.”

While the report found there was no evidence of “broad labour market upheaval driven by artificial intelligence”, it did note that occupations which are more exposed to potential automation by AI are growing more slowly than other roles. It noted that between late 2022 and early 2026, employment in the least-exposed jobs grew by 9.5%, but growth in the most-exposed roles increased by only 5.6%.

“We find a small negative relationship between AI exposure and employment growth,” it said.

The government is under pressure to outline its responses to AI-related concerns in a number of areas, including copyright and protection of media and creatives, privacy, health, industry, trust and safety, and workplace relations. There are also questions of how to assure Australians of the need to devote swathes of land, power and water to resource-intensive datacentres.

Andrew Charlton, the assistant minister for technology, conceded in a speech on Tuesday that public trust in AI is low, and that the government needed to better regulate the space.

The government has ruled out watering down copyright protections for AI, after reports emerged that leading companies have raised the need to access Australian data before they would make major investments into the country.

Anthony Albanese is expected to make a major speech next week to provide an overview of the government’s plans on AI. Multiple government sources said the update was likely to include how Labor plans to respond to various challenges created by the new technology, but is unlikely to include specific responses to copyright questions.

On Wednesday, asked about potential copyright changes, the prime minister said journalists “should be paid for your work if someone is using that to gain profit”.

“My government has a strong record of supporting people; one, having control over things that they have created, and secondly, if things are being used, being paid for it, being properly compensated for it.”