What Happened
Deloitte released its report "Employment Forecasts: The Year of AI" in early June 2026, declaring this year the turning point for AI's impact on the Australian labour market. The firm's Access Economics division identified 82 occupations it considers most exposed to AI disruption - a list that spans managers in human resources, engineering, hospitality and retail; librarians; graphic designers; medical imaging professionals; bank workers; law clerks; accountants; secretaries; logistics workers; telemarketers; and other sales-related roles.
David Rumbens, a partner at Deloitte Access Economics, told reporters the evidence of AI's effect on hiring was already visible. "We've seen some organisations announce job losses and attribute that, at least in part, to AI," he said. The headline forecast is stark: employment growth in the 82 most-affected occupations, which ran at 1.9 per cent per annum over the past five years, was already expected to slow to 1.2 per cent per annum in the absence of AI. Factor in the current pace of AI adoption and Rumbens says that figure could drop further still.
"That cohort of AI disrupted occupations had employment grow by 1.9 per cent per annum over the last five years," Rumbens said. "If you look over the next five, in the absence of AI, we expected that trend to slow a little to 1.2 per cent per annum. But with AI happening at a rapid rate that might then slow to 0.5 per cent per annum."
Why It Matters
The numbers in the Deloitte report are not theoretical projections about a distant future - they describe a shift that is already showing up in hiring data. Vacancies in AI-disrupted tech jobs fell by 17.8 per cent on average for the three years to June 2026, compared with a 9.9 per cent fall for the wider labour market over the same period. That gap is significant. It suggests employers in the most exposed sectors are already pulling back on headcount in ways that go beyond the ordinary ebb and flow of the jobs market.
Deloitte's report is explicit on this point, noting the fall in AI-disrupted tech vacancies was "not just a result of cyclical labour market behaviour" and was "likely disproportionately falling on entry-level workers." That last detail matters enormously for workforce planning. Entry-level roles are where most people begin building professional skills and experience. If those positions are being automated away before workers can get a foothold, the downstream effects on career pipelines and income mobility will be felt for years.
For Australian businesses, the implication is direct. Organisations that treat AI adoption as a cost-cutting exercise without investing in workforce transition are taking on real reputational and operational risk. Those that pair AI automations with genuine staff training programmes are far better placed to retain institutional knowledge while capturing productivity gains. Our editorial standards require us to say plainly when the evidence points one way - and here it does.
Key Details
The 82 occupations Deloitte flagged cover a wide range of industries and seniority levels. The list includes roles that many Australians would consider stable, skilled, and well-paid: accountants, law clerks, medical imaging professionals, and engineering managers all appear alongside more routinely automated positions like telemarketers and data-entry workers. That breadth is part of what makes this report different from earlier AI-and-jobs analyses, which tended to focus on low-skill or highly repetitive work.
Rumbens was careful to note that the overall employment picture in these occupations is not yet one of mass losses. "So the group of occupations that might be most disrupted we're expecting might have slower growth over the next five years than they would have had if there wasn't this sort of rapid AI change," he said. Growth is slowing, not reversing - at least for now. But a drop from 1.9 per cent per annum to 0.5 per cent per annum represents a very substantial change in the trajectory of employment in those fields.
Australia's overall jobs growth rate is also forecast to almost halve between 2025 and 2027, though Deloitte attributes that broader slowdown to wider economic conditions rather than AI alone.
Background and Context
The Deloitte report lands against a backdrop of real job cuts at prominent Australian technology companies. Both Atlassian and WiseTech announced AI-driven redundancies earlier in 2026, with thousands of roles set to disappear. Those announcements drew significant public attention and gave the Deloitte findings an immediate, concrete reference point.
Globally, the scale of tech sector cuts is even more pronounced. Bloomberg reported that more than 38,000 tech jobs would be eliminated during May alone in the United States, taking the year's total to 125,623 cuts. That figure provides context for the Australian data: the forces driving the local vacancy decline are not unique to this country.
Clinton Free, a professor at the University of Sydney Business School, reviewed the Deloitte report and described it as "fairly optimistic" about the impact of AI, noting it was consistent with other projections in the field. That framing is worth sitting with. If a report forecasting employment growth in 82 occupations dropping to 0.5 per cent per annum is the optimistic scenario, the range of plausible outcomes is wide.
For professional services firms in particular - accounting, legal, consulting, financial services - the combination of AI capability and competitive pressure to cut costs creates a genuine strategic inflection point. The firms that will come out ahead are those building AI strategy into their operating model now, rather than reacting to disruption after it has already reshaped their workforce.
What Comes Next
Deloitte's forecast covers the next five years, which means the 0.5 per cent per annum growth scenario for AI-disrupted occupations plays out through to roughly 2031. The pace of that slowdown will depend heavily on how quickly AI tools mature, how aggressively employers adopt them, and whether government or industry bodies introduce any structural responses to support affected workers.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and other regulators have been watching AI's labour market effects, though no specific employment-focused AI regulation has been announced at the time of publication. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner continues to develop guidance on AI and privacy, which intersects with how AI tools are deployed in workplaces.
For workers in the 82 identified occupations, the practical question is how to build skills and capabilities that complement rather than compete with AI systems. For employers, the question is how to manage the transition in a way that retains talent and avoids the reputational cost of being seen to use AI purely as a headcount reduction tool. Our authors will continue tracking how Australian businesses and regulators respond as the year progresses.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which occupations are most at risk of AI disruption according to Deloitte?
Deloitte identified 82 occupations it considers most exposed, and the list is broader than many people might expect. It includes managers in human resources, engineering, hospitality and retail; librarians; graphic designers; medical imaging professionals; bank workers; law clerks; accountants; secretaries; logistics workers; telemarketers; and other sales-related roles. The common thread is that these positions involve tasks - data processing, document review, scheduling, customer communication - that current AI systems can perform with increasing reliability. Deloitte's point is not that all of these jobs will disappear, but that employment growth in them will slow significantly compared with what it would have been without rapid AI adoption.
How much will employment growth slow in AI-disrupted occupations?
According to Deloitte Access Economics partner David Rumbens, the cohort of AI-disrupted occupations grew at 1.9 per cent per annum over the past five years. Even without AI, that rate was expected to slow to 1.2 per cent per annum over the next five years due to broader economic conditions. With AI adoption accelerating, Deloitte's forecast is that growth could slow further to just 0.5 per cent per annum. That is not a prediction of mass unemployment, but it does represent a very significant change in the pace at which these fields create new positions - and it has real consequences for people entering the workforce or considering a career change into one of these areas.
Is the impact of AI on Australian jobs already visible in the data?
Yes, and the vacancy data is particularly telling. Vacancies in AI-disrupted tech jobs fell by 17.8 per cent on average for the three years to June 2026, compared with a 9.9 per cent fall for the wider labour market over the same period. Deloitte's report explicitly states this decline was "not just a result of cyclical labour market behaviour," meaning it cannot be explained away by the general softening of the jobs market. The report also notes the impact is "likely disproportionately falling on entry-level workers," which points to a structural shift in how employers are staffing up rather than a temporary hiring pause.
What should Australian businesses do in response to this forecast?
The Deloitte findings suggest that businesses in the affected sectors face a genuine strategic choice. Those that use AI purely to reduce headcount without investing in workforce transition risk losing institutional knowledge, damaging staff morale, and facing reputational consequences. A more sustainable approach involves pairing AI adoption with structured staff training programmes and a clear AI strategy that identifies where automation adds value and where human judgement remains essential. Mindiam works with Australian organisations across professional services and other sectors to develop exactly this kind of approach - one grounded in the specific capabilities and risks of the tools being deployed.
How does Australia's situation compare with global trends?
The Australian data sits within a much larger global pattern. Bloomberg reported that more than 38,000 tech jobs would be eliminated in the United States during May 2026 alone, bringing the year's total to 125,623 cuts. Australian tech firms Atlassian and WiseTech both announced AI-driven redundancies earlier in 2026. Clinton Free, a professor at the University of Sydney Business School, described the Deloitte report as "fairly optimistic" and consistent with other projections, which suggests the consensus view among researchers is that the disruption will be at least as significant as Deloitte is forecasting - and possibly more so. Australia is not an outlier; it is part of a global labour market adjustment that is still in its early stages.
