Every week there is a headline about AI wiping out jobs. In July 2026 the Office of the Chief Economist at the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations published the first proper look at whether that is actually happening here. The AI and employment in Australia report checks the real labour market data rather than the predictions. If you run a small business it is worth ten minutes of your time, so here is the short version.
What the report actually found
The headline finding is blunt: there is no evidence yet of broad AI-driven upheaval in the Australian labour market. The report uses ABS Labour Force Survey data and job ad data up to February 2026, measured from November 2022 when ChatGPT arrived. Unemployment sat at 4.4 per cent in May 2026 and participation is near record highs. Jobs for people aged 20 to 24 have grown slightly faster than for those aged 25 and over, which cuts against the idea that AI is pulling the ladder up on young workers.
That does not mean nothing is moving. The report ranks occupations by how exposed they are to generative AI. Since November 2022, employment in the most exposed fifth of occupations has grown 5.6 per cent, against 9.5 per cent in the least exposed fifth. The most exposed jobs are the ones you would expect: clerical and administrative roles, data entry, filing and registry work. Those roles were already shrinking before ChatGPT, so the authors are careful to call the result suggestive rather than definitive. It is an early sign of slower growth in a handful of occupations, not proof of job losses.
One number stood out to us. Employment in software development roles is up 25 per cent since November 2022. The job most people assumed AI would eat first has grown faster than almost anything else. The tools made developers more productive, and businesses bought more of their time, not less.
Helping, not replacing
That pattern matches the Jobs and Skills Australia Generative AI Capacity Study the report builds on. It found generative AI is far more likely to augment work than automate it, especially in skilled roles. The tasks that disappear are the repetitive ones inside a job, not the job itself. Entry-level roles are more likely to change shape than vanish.
We see the same thing in practice. At Trapdoor Media our inbox gets triaged, overdue invoices get chased and client reports get drafted by AI before anyone opens a laptop. None of that replaced a person. It removed the hour of admin that used to sit in front of the real work. The small businesses we help with AI solutions are after the same thing: fewer repetitive tasks, more time for customers. We wrote about where that line sits in AI in the Workplace: Partner, Not a Crutch.
What small business owners should take from it
Automate before you hire for admin. If the next role on your list is mostly inbox, invoice chasing and moving data between systems, look at automating those tasks first. That is exactly the work the report flags as most exposed, and it is where AI gives the fastest return for a small business.
Buy back judgement time. The roles that are growing are the ones where someone has to decide, design, sell or fix something. Use AI to hand your existing people more of that time rather than to trim headcount.
Treat it as a skills project, not a cost cut. The Jobs and Skills Australia study puts skills at the centre of its recommendations. There is a widening gap between a business where one person quietly uses ChatGPT and one where the whole team has a shared way of working with AI. Pick the second option on purpose.
Watch the data, not the headlines. The department has committed to keep monitoring the gap between exposed and less exposed occupations. The number to watch is that 5.6 per cent versus 9.5 per cent split. If it widens sharply, the picture has changed. Until then, the evidence on AI and employment in Australia says the shift is gradual.
So yes, AI is changing jobs in Australia, but slowly and mostly from the inside out. The businesses that come out ahead will be the ones that use it to make their existing people better at what they do. If you want help working out where that applies in your business, get in touch.