AI-driven workforce change is increasingly showing up in the Australian labour market, and the first people to feel it are not the executives selling the future, but junior workers trying to get a foothold in it. The Australian says the message for CFOs and workforce planners is not to be complacent, while evidence from job vacancies, company announcements and international markets points to AI-related change already under way.
Who Gets Squeezed First
The article says AI’s largest employment impacts are likely to hit roles defined by routine automatable tasks that do not always require human soft skills, including clerical and information processing occupations. It says employment growth in these occupations in Australia is weaker than employment growth in the broader labour market, a trend that predates recent AI developments but is now being accelerated. Over the past decade, employment in these roles has increased at roughly half the pace of total employment growth, with the article saying this likely reflects both recent AI developments and earlier waves of automation.
The piece says the scale of AI’s impact will ultimately depend on how organisations adopt the technology, and identifies the critical next step as the shift from organic, individual AI experimentation to enterprise-wide integration. Most AI use remains informal, the article says, but some organisations are beginning to implement the technology at scale. Companies in the US and UK are slightly further along the AI adoption curve than Australia, offering a preview of what may come next.
The Hiring Freeze at the Bottom
The clearest signs of pressure are showing up in hiring, not mass layoffs. The article says there are clear signs that AI is impacting junior white-collar roles in the US, with technology and finance firms slowing the hiring of entry-level analysts, programmers and support staff as AI tools augment research, drafting and coding tasks. That means the first cut is often not a pink slip but a closed door: fewer openings for people trying to enter the labour market in the first place.
US Bureau of Labor Statistics data released in February 2026 showed that 181,000 jobs were added to the US economy over the course of 2025, down from 2.0 million in 2024. The article says this modest rate of job growth occurred while real GDP growth remained robust, and says there is strong labour productivity growth in the US, though the jury is out on whether it is AI-driven labour productivity growth or productivity growth driven by other factors.
What the Job Boards Reveal
UK job posting data show similar trends. Adzuna, which tracks millions of job listings, reports a sharp contraction in entry-level hiring, with vacancies falling by 31.9 per cent between November 2022 and mid-2025. The share of entry-level jobs in the overall labour market declined from 29 per cent to 25 per cent over the same period. The article says these patterns suggest AI’s first labour market effects are emerging through hiring patterns and weaker demand, rather than large-scale job losses, and are more noticeable among younger workers.
For Australia, Deloitte Access Economics has analysed which age groups are most exposed to AI-driven disruption and found younger workers are overrepresented in occupations perceived to be at risk. In November 2025, workers aged 15–24 made up 22.9 per cent of employment in AI-disrupted roles, compared with 15.2 per cent of overall employment. Despite that higher exposure, the article says the overall data does not yet point to AI reducing demand for younger workers in Australia.
The Broader Labour Market Trap
The article says AI-driven workforce change may not yet be a major factor behind rising unemployment, which it attributes to higher interest rates and slower government spending growth. Even so, it says the evidence from vacancies, company announcements and international markets signals that AI-related change is already moving through the system. That means the people at the bottom are being asked to absorb the uncertainty while the institutions at the top debate whether the machine is really to blame.
Looking ahead, Deloitte Access Economics expects employment growth to diverge across occupation groups. Community and personal service workers, trades workers and many professionals are forecast to see robust demand, while AI-exposed professions, managers, clerical and administrative staff and sales workers may see softer demand. The article concludes that while Australia has not yet experienced the scale of disruption seen overseas, the evidence is mounting that AI-driven workforce change will be a labour market feature over the next few years, and says workforce decisions should be grounded in real adoption patterns, operational needs and sector-specific developments rather than broad headlines or speculation.
The article is by David Rumbens, who is identified as a Partner at Deloitte Access Economics.