Australian government report warns women and graduates most at risk of losing jobs to AI
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Occupations typically held by women and university graduates, including roles in telemarketing, advertising and accountancy, are among those most at risk of being replaced by artificial intelligence (AI), the Australian government warned in a national report published on 30 June.
Drawing on data from labour market insights body Jobs and Skills Australia, it said that cognitive roles such as “clerks, programmers, and administrative roles” bore the highest exposure to AI replacement, while manual roles including “carers, tradespeople, and drivers” bore the lowest exposure.
The report explained that “nearly 70% of workers in the least-exposed group” were male, while women were “thought to be susceptible to automation because they are disproportionately employed in exposed occupations”. Specifically, it described male-dominated “manual” jobs, such as “plumbers and forklift drivers”, as among those broadly insulated from automation. Routine cognitive occupations, such as “keyboard operators” were, by contrast, more heavily exposed to forms of AI such as large language models.
Young people were also said to be at risk, because AI models were “generally best at performing tasks that require codified knowledge (‘book-learning’)” though were “’less capable of replacing tacit knowledge, the idiosyncratic tips and tricks that accumulate with experience’”, which the report said younger workers “disproportionately lack”.
The report came as the Australian government prepared its plan to further regulate and mitigate the impact of AI on employment across multiple industries and the wider Australian economy. However, it said that though AI “could yet reshape” the Australian jobs market, labour market conditions remained “strong by historical standards” and “occupational reshuffling” had not accelerated.
Commenting on the report, Amanda Rishworth, Australia’s employment minister, said: “[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 said finally that the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR) would continue to monitor and report on trends in this context.
An AI national framework
Since publishing the report, the Australian government has moved forward with its plans to impose fresh rules and standards on the development and use of AI in public services.
Speaking about the proposed Australian Standards for AI, Australia’s prime minister Anthony Albanese said that while “every country on Earth” was grappling with AI challenges, Australia would be the first country in the world to bring the issues “into a single, national framework”.
To support and sustain its national AI framework, the Australian government established what it called an Office of AI within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. The new office is expected to work with Australia’s industry and innovation minister, Tim Ayres, along with its assistant minister for science, technology and the digital economy, Andrew Charlton, to coordinate the creation of new AI standards.
Such standards follow on from the government’s plan to build large AI datacentres. Crucially, these datacentres will be required by law to underwrite their own power supply, as well as pay their share of grid connection costs so that Australian energy bills are not impacted. These rules are due to be legislated in early 2027.
Ayres told Australia’s ABC radio station meanwhile that the country’s attorney-general, Michelle Rowland, would put transparency and ethical practice at the forefront of her work with agencies across the public service.
Commenting on the country’s intended approach to AI governance, he said that the Albanese administration would work to ensure that “there’s always a person…in the chain of decision making, where it’s providing better and fairer services for Australians”.
Ayres added finally: “This is the Albanese government making sure that artificial intelligence is safe for Australians, and that its adoption is in the national interest.”
