AI Job Disruption in Australia: How Gen Z Can Future-Proof Their Careers

The AI Job Carnage: What It Means for Australia's Workforce

Last week, Atlassian cut 1600 jobs globally, blaming AI. This follows a wave of tech layoffs across Australia, including Afterpay's parent company Block slashing more than 4000 jobs, WiseTech axing 2000, and Amazon cutting 16,000 positions. University of NSW student Ahnaf Rakeen, 19, switched from a Bachelor of Design to Architectural Studies after his freelance graphic design work dried up due to clients using AI themselves.

"I realised that this is not going to be worth my time to study in university ... it's already this bad, imagine after my degree is completed, I would not be needed at all," says Rakeen.

Which Jobs Are Most at Risk?

Technology-related roles were among the fastest-growing occupations in Australia from 2020 to 2025, but according to a report from Anthropic, they're now among the top occupations heavily exposed to AI disruption. University of Sydney Business School Professor Clinton Free notes that "yesterday's growth occupations are not automatically tomorrow's safe occupations."

Teachers, tradies, aged care and healthcare roles are projected to grow by 2050, but cleaners and hospitality workers were among the top 10 fastest-shrinking occupations between 2024 and 2025.

No Occupation Is Immune

Dr Janine Dixon, who helped model the labour market impact of generative AI for Jobs and Skills Australia, found there was "absolutely no occupation that was completely immune from AI." Her simulation showed augmentation – people working with AI – was "by far the more widespread and larger effect" than automation.

"The best way you can future-proof yourself is to know how to use [AI]," says Dixon. "Otherwise, you're going to be at a disadvantage relative to the people who do know how to use it."

How Students Are Preparing

Careers consultant Helen Green noticed year 12 students and parents becoming increasingly concerned about AI's impact on employment opportunities. She warns against pursuing degrees solely based on growth projections, emphasizing instead the development of transferable human skills that AI lacks: communication, creativity, and critical thinking.

"Half the careers they'll be working in haven't been invented yet," says Green. "Young people who are adaptable and have good people skills will always find work."

Justin Peat, head of futures at Melbourne's St Leonard's College, organizes seminars where industry professionals discuss their career journeys and AI's impact on their sectors. "These industry leaders themselves are a little bit unsure of what the future brings," says Peat, "but that honesty highlights the need to be comfortable with uncertainty."

Practical Examples of AI Adaptation

Third-year civil and humanitarian engineering student Rifah Tamanna uses AI to handle coding tasks while focusing on the human aspects of her work. "AI can't go abroad to a developing country and ask the people what they actually lack," she says. "You have to go to the place and analyse how the people work, how the people live, to give them a solution."

Rakeen chose architecture because "AI can't just go in person and measure parts in buildings and draw everything to scale." He believes this hands-on aspect will take longer for AI to replicate.

The Reality of AI Integration

Indeed Australia senior economist Callam Pickering notes that "we're still very much in the early stages of this transformation" and that "a lot of what we say about AI is speculative." Short-term developments sometimes contradict long-term forecasts, as seen when Commonwealth Bank had to reverse its decision to replace call centre jobs with AI chatbots after the move backfired.

Professor Free adds that "the technology is moving faster than the official labour statistics," making it difficult to predict exactly how AI will reshape Australia's job market.