The AI jobs apocalypse hasn’t landed in Australia – yet

Artificial intelligence is starting to hurt the prospects of employees including clerks and telemarketers, ground-breaking research shows, just as Australian businesses embark on a $155 billion data centre spending spree that is growing faster than the 2010s mining boom.

Based on nationwide payroll data, research by Monash University economist Zac Gross reveals that while there are early signs the AI revolution is softening some parts of the job market, it is yet to hit the wages of people most exposed to the technology.

Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that in the first three months of the year, businesses spent a record $6 billion on equipment and machinery linked to AI – a 400 per cent increase in one year.

Once new buildings are taken into account, businesses have spent a record $21.8 billion on AI and IT over the past 12 months. Every other part of the economy, including mining, was either flat or had slightly reduced capital spending over the period.

Gross said his research, taken directly from the payrolls of businesses, showed the impact of large language models was yet to hit the nation’s jobs market.

But he did find that between 2022 and today, hiring had been weaker in those occupations most at threat of being replaced by AI. These included jobs such as accounting clerks, keyboard operators, positions in human resources and telemarketers.

“These results don’t cancel the AI apocalypse, but they certainly postpone it,” he said.

“Even for occupations whose deaths have been heralded, such as software engineers and telemarketers, we see relatively little weakness in the labour market.

“Software engineers’ earnings have grown at around the national average, even as AI has become a major part of their job. The same is true for telemarketers and call centre operators who might be substituted for AI.”

Gross said jobs in advisory or managerial occupations that may be at risk from AI, such as bank workers and financial advisers, were softer than 2022 but not as depressed as those that could be more easily replaced by the technology.

His research also suggested AI has yet to hit the wages of workers.

He did find, however, that firms that were adopting AI were enjoying stronger earnings growth than those businesses not yet using it. But within those firms, the salaries for people whose jobs were at risk of being replaced by AI were not growing as fast as those safe from the technology.

Australia is home to one of the biggest increases in data centre and AI-related infrastructure in the developed world. The nation’s largest da