The Headlines Say Destruction. The Data Says Something Else.
Three months into 2026, the layoff headlines have been brutal. WiseTech cut 2,000 roles. Atlassian slashed 1,600. CBA trimmed 300 while posting a record $5 billion half-year profit. Telstra dropped 650. Sydney now ranks third globally for tech job losses, behind only San Francisco and Seattle.
Every single round cited AI as the primary driver. That's 4,450 Australian jobs gone in ten weeks — more than five times the total recorded across all of 2025.
It would be easy to read those numbers and panic. But the layoff count is only half the story. A growing stack of data from Australian and global sources is painting a very different picture of what AI is actually doing to the job market.
74% of Australian Companies Are Hiring More Because of AI
A March 2026 study by Snowflake and Omdia surveyed 2,050 business and technology leaders across ten countries. The Australia and New Zealand results were striking: 74% of ANZ organisations experienced increased hiring due to AI adoption, compared with 50% that experienced role reductions.
That's not a typo. For every company cutting jobs, roughly one and a half are adding them.
Among ANZ respondents, 41% said AI has created net new jobs across their organisation. Just 17% said it has eliminated roles outright. The remaining 33% reported a mix — some roles gone, others created — and of those, 69% said the overall effect has been positive.
The Australian HR Institute found something similar in its latest Work Outlook survey. Four in ten organisations (41%) reported an increase in entry-level roles because of AI. Only 19% reported a decline. AHRI CEO Sarah McCann-Bartlett noted this aligns with Jobs and Skills Australia's Generative AI Capacity Study, which found that augmentation outweighs automation across most occupations.
Where the New Jobs Are
LinkedIn's Jobs on the Rise 2026 list tells you where the demand is headed. AI Engineer is the number one fastest-growing role in Australia, with 150% growth over three years. Director of Artificial Intelligence sits at number four. Salaries for AI engineers range from $165,000 to $250,000.
Last year's list was dominated by teachers, servers, and travel specialists — pandemic-recovery roles. The shift to technology-led growth is stark.
The Tech Council of Australia projects up to 200,000 AI-related jobs in Australia by 2030. That would require the AI workforce to grow 500% from its current base of roughly 33,000 — up from just 800 workers in 2014. These roles won't all be in tech companies. Healthcare, finance, logistics, and government agencies are all recruiting AI professionals.
Globally, LinkedIn and the World Economic Forum estimate 1.3 million new AI-related roles have been created in just two years.
But What About Everyone Else?
Here's the honest part: most of those new AI roles require technical skills that take years to develop. A keyboard operator with an AI exposure score of 8.0/10 isn't going to retrain as an AI engineer overnight. Neither is a general clerk (7.0/10) or an accounting clerk (7.2/10).
McKinsey estimates that up to 1.3 million Australian workers — 9% of the total workforce — may need to transition into entirely different occupations by 2030. That's not regular job churn. That's people leaving one career and starting another.
The occupations most likely to shrink are exactly the ones you'd expect. Personal assistants are declining at 7.7% over five years. Secretaries at 7.5%. Keyboard operators at 6%. Filing and registry clerks at 3.2%. These roles involve routine, structured tasks that AI handles well.
But the occupations growing fastest in Australia have almost nothing to do with AI — they're the ones AI can't touch.
The Occupations AI Is Growing (Indirectly)
Australia's fastest-growing occupations are in healthcare. Chiropractors and osteopaths are up 20.1% over five years. Dental practitioners: 20%. Podiatrists: 20%. Physiotherapists: 19.7%. Occupational therapists: 18.8%. Registered nurses employ 362,900 Australians and are in shortage.
These roles all have AI exposure scores between 3.3 and 4.3 out of 10. They require physical presence, human judgement, and interpersonal connection — the things AI is worst at.
Then there are the trades. Electricians (AI score: 2.8/10, 195,900 employed) and plumbers (2.8/10, 108,200 employed) are in shortage and barely touched by AI. Carpenters and joiners sit at 3.1/10 with 149,900 workers. These aren't jobs AI is creating directly, but they're jobs the AI economy still needs — and they're booming.
The real story isn't that AI creates or destroys jobs. It's that AI reshapes which jobs matter. Routine clerical work shrinks. Healthcare, trades, and technical roles grow. The net effect, so far, is positive — but only if you zoom out far enough to see the whole picture.
The Paradox in the Middle
Some occupations sit in an uncomfortable middle ground. Software and applications programmers have an AI exposure score of 6.7/10 — one of the highest for a professional role — yet employment has grown 15.7% over five years to 195,400. The occupation is officially in shortage.
Database and systems administrators, and ICT security specialists have a 5.5/10 AI score but employ 72,300 people in a sector where demand keeps climbing. Cybersecurity roles are among the fastest-growing subsets.
AI is both the threat and the opportunity for these workers. The ones who learn to work alongside it stay in demand. The ones who don't adapt face real risk. It's the same pattern JSA identified: AI augments more than it automates, but the gap between workers who use AI and those who don't is widening fast.
What the Government Data Actually Says
Jobs and Skills Australia's Generative AI Capacity Study — the first national, whole-of-labour-market analysis of its kind — concluded that gen AI is more likely to augment human work than replace it. Commissioner Barney Glover called it "a tremendous opportunity for Australia and our workforce to boost our productivity."
The study found 55% of workplace tasks could be performed by people using AI — not replaced by it. Another 15% of tasks could be fully automated. The difference matters. A general clerk whose spreadsheet work gets automated might lose hours, but the same clerk using AI to handle data analysis could take on higher-value work.
Whether that happens depends on employers, training, and policy — not just the technology.
So Is AI a Net Positive for Australian Jobs?
The honest answer: right now, yes — but with serious caveats.
The macro data is clear. More Australian companies are hiring because of AI than cutting. New roles are being created faster than old ones disappear. The occupations growing fastest (healthcare, trades) have low AI risk. The Tech Council's 200,000-job forecast is backed by real workforce data.
But the 755,400 Australians working in occupations with an AI exposure score of 7.0 or higher can't ignore what's coming. Keyboard operators, telemarketers, filing clerks, and accounting clerks face real displacement pressure. The transition won't be painless, and the new jobs aren't always in the same cities, industries, or skill levels as the old ones.
AI is creating more jobs than it kills — for now. The question is whether Australia moves fast enough on training, workforce policy, and support to make sure the people losing jobs can get to the ones being created.
You can check where your occupation sits on the spectrum — growing or shrinking, at risk or AI-proof — on the rankings page or by searching your job directly.