Australia's Department of Employment and Workplace Relations released Q4 2025 labour market data in March 2026 that contradicts the displacement narrative dominating discussion of AI's economic effects. On every available measure, AI adoption has been accompanied by employment growth rather than decline.
What the data shows
The professional services sector — consulting, legal, accounting, engineering — added 43,000 net roles in 2025 while deploying AI tools across a majority of its workflow. Technology sector employment grew 11.2% year-on-year. Healthcare added 67,000 roles, the largest absolute gain of any sector, despite being an early adopter of AI diagnostic and administrative tools.
The occupations with the highest AI adoption rates showed the strongest employment growth — suggesting AI is currently functioning more as an augmentation tool than as a replacement.
The caveat the data cannot answer
What employment statistics cannot capture is how much larger employment might have grown without AI-driven productivity improvements. If AI enables companies to grow revenue without proportionally growing headcount, it could simultaneously produce net employment gains and suppress employment compared to a counterfactual world without AI.
The skills transformation
AI adoption is changing what Australian employers want. The SEEK Job Trends index reported in February 2026 that AI-related skills appeared in 34% of professional job listings — up from 11% in 2023. Growth is concentrated in Melbourne and Sydney, with Perth and Brisbane showing increases driven by mining sector digitisation.