Jobs and Skills Report 2025
The Jobs and Skills Report 2025 by Jobs and Skills Australia is the Australian Government's annual assessment of workforce trends, skills needs and labour market dynamics, designed to inform education, training and employment policy.
The report reveals that generative AI is predominantly augmenting tasks rather than automating them, challenging widespread concerns about job displacement. Analysis shows that 31% of Australia's workforce are in highly augmentable occupations, compared to only 4% in highly automatable roles.
This shift is driving increased demand for both digital literacy and distinctly human capabilities including critical thinking, communication, problem solving and adaptability. The report emphasises that foundation skills and employability skills underpin participation in meaningful work, with problem solving identified as a key capability for workers to adapt as technology changes the nature of jobs.
As GenAI automates routine tasks, opportunities emerge for job transformation, particularly in higher-skilled roles where workers can focus on tasks requiring human judgement and creativity. However, the effects are unevenly distributed. Women face greater exposure to both automation and augmentation based on current occupational composition, while regional and remote areas show lower exposure, suggesting less scope for both disruption and productivity gains.
Service industries have driven nearly 90% of employment growth over the past decade, and this structural shift towards higher-skilled, service-oriented roles is projected to continue through 2035.
Industries with higher workforce shortages show lower productivity growth. Construction, Mining, and Health Care and Social Assistance face the highest workforce shortages and weakest productivity growth over the 2021 to 2025 period, demonstrating how skills gaps constrain economic output.