Deloitte Access Economics Employment Forecasts: The Year of AI

04 June 2026: Several large Australian employers have announced redundancies or restructures attributed, at least in part, to automation and AI adoption. However, announced individual job losses tell only part of the story.

According to the June 2026 edition of Deloitte Access Economics' quarterly Employment Forecasts report, the structural impacts of AI on the labour market are starting to be seen and are expected to become more noticeable over the next few years.

To examine the effects of AI on the Australian labour market systematically, Deloitte Access Economics has assessed occupations based on the extent to which an occupation's core tasks can be automated by AI versus the necessity for human performance, using Deloitte Human Capital's Work Analyser tool.

A group of 82 'AI-disrupted' occupations are expected to face the highest risk of declining employment, as AI replaces tasks which have less requirement for human judgement, empathy or interpersonal skills.

Job vacancies in some of these disrupted occupations have started to fall as AI begins to reshape Australia's labour market. However, employment levels in these occupations have continued to rise to date, suggesting the effects are being felt more in recruitment than redundancies.

Releasing the report, Deloitte Access Economics Partner David Rumbens said: "Limited evidence of widespread job losses could suggest that AI is currently playing more of an augmentative role in the Australian labour market, with Australians less likely to use AI primarily for automation.

"These augmentation-focused usage patterns suggest AI could deliver much- needed productivity gains while job gains are still seen. However, this may also simply reflect the current stage of adoption, with AI tools still used mainly to boost individual productivity before a later phase of more significant change as work processes are reorganised.

"Vacancies are a leading indicator of employment growth, and some evidence of lower vacancies in some AI-disrupted occupations suggests that employment growth could substantially moderate in the coming years due to AI."

Tracking the impact of AI on the broader workforce

Deloitte's Organisation Design, Workforce Strategy and Planning lead Partner Sarah Rogers said: "These AI-disrupted occupations are concentrated in white-collar, knowledge-intensive industries such as financial and insurance services, professional, scientific and technical services, and information media, but the disrupted tasks within these roles often rely less on judgement, empathy and people skills."

An analysis of these occupations found that even without accounting for AI adoption, employment growth for AI-disrupted occupations is forecast to slow from an annual average of 1.9% over the past five years to 1.2% over the next five years.

Once AI effects are incorporated - that is, the economy-wide diffusion of AI - the forecast annual average growth rate for AI-disrupted occupations may slow to 0.5% over the next five years, a reduction in growth of 0.7 percentage points.

But there is also a group of occupations expected to see stronger labour demand with AI, as AI complements skills in those occupations and makes them more valuable. AI use is also expected to produce a small, but broad based lift for all other workers as AI-driven productivity gains flow through the wider economy.