AI Labour Costs in Australia: Has It Paid Off?

"In Australia, AI has largely been positioned as a way to stretch limited skills capacity in high-cost specialist roles, rather than as a headcount reduction tool. Despite widespread tech layoffs globally and locally over the past few years, Australia's skills shortage has remained largely unchanged. Cuts at large technology firms have often weakened the broader ecosystem, impacting smaller suppliers and subcontractors alongside the firms making redundancies. Rather than releasing excess capacity into the market, layoffs have tended to redistribute pressure across an already constrained talent"

"Skill shortages remain a key concern for CIOs, according to tech marketing firm Foundry's State of the CIO survey. In the survey, 54 percent of CIOs cited skill and staff shortages as their number one challenge, diverting time away from innovative and strategic work. More than a third also reported difficulty finding candidates with the desired AI and machine learning experience."

"The rate of AI deployment or usage does not automatically translate into reduced labour pressure. In some cases, AI can fully take over a technical task, while in others it acts as an assistive tool that specialists still need to operate and oversee. While OpenAI and other foundation model builders claim AI will soon be capable of handling a broad range of tasks, for now there is a clearer playbook for which activities can be automated and which are better suited to augmentation."

AI in Australia has been deployed primarily to stretch limited specialist skills capacity rather than to cut headcount, leaving national skill shortages largely unchanged despite global tech layoffs. Layoffs at large technology firms have weakened ecosystems and redistributed talent pressure to smaller suppliers and subcontractors instead of increasing market capacity. Foundry's State of the CIO survey found 54 percent of CIOs name skill and staff shortages as their top challenge and over one-third report difficulty finding candidates with AI and machine learning experience. AI reduces labour pressure mainly when it automates repeatable, well-defined work, enabling scarce experts to focus selectively; many AI tools remain assistive and require specialist oversight.

Read at TechRepublic