CSIRO claims AI is creating Aussie jobs

The overarching narrative about AI is it will – and already is – causing job losses as tasks are automated and fewer humans are needed within organisations. Australia’s premier scientific research organisation, the CSIRO, however, disagrees.

It recently conducted a study, published in the Australian Journal of Labour Economics, which analysed a national dataset of online job ads from more than 4000 Australian firms, and what it claims to have found, distilled down, is AI is creating more jobs than what it’s eliminating.

Lead author of the report, Dr Claire Mason, who heads up CSIRO’s Workforce and Productivity research team, said firms across the board are increasing their hiring, but the ones that have adopted AI did so at a significantly faster rate.

The study looked particularly closely at what it calls ‘AI-exposed’ jobs – basically knowledge worker jobs whose tasks can be automated by AI. The study found that demand for AI‑exposed roles did not decline in firms that adopted AI. What was evident though, the report said, was a slight (and statistically significant) decline in demand for these AI-exposed workers in firms that were not adopting AI.

“That suggests AI-exposed workers may be disadvantaged if they’re in firms that aren’t using AI. Their peers in AI-adopting firms are potentially more competitive because they’re able to use these tools to augment their work,” Mason said.

Statistically rigorous studies are hard to argue with, though in March Atlassian announced major job cuts to "rebalance" ‌its resources to focus on the "future ‌of teamwork in the AI era."