By 2030, Australia’s job market will shrink by 11%, or 1.5 million jobs, as artificial intelligence and automation continue to reshape the global workforce, according to Forrester. Finance, accounting and procurement employees in highly structured management jobs are most at risk: automation could eliminate 1 million of those jobs first.

A new report by Forrester, Future Jobs: Australia’s Automation Dividends And Deficits, 2020 To 2030, analysed 391 occupations tracked by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. To identify the occupations that will be most affected, the report divides these occupations into 12 automation categories that share common skills and activities. As automation increases, some jobs will be lost, new ones will emerge (1.7 million by 2030), and others will shift to the gig economy. Workers who are unable or unwilling to accept this shift will fall out of the traditional workforce altogether.

VM600 IOC4T

Key highlights of the report include:

Knowledge diversity will keep 27% of employees in their jobs. Australia’s 1.2 million cross-cutting knowledge workers will be safe because their jobs require different skills. In addition, the need for excellent body language communication skills and empathy will protect many human workers.

The demand for technical skills will increase the digital workforce by 33%. The lack of skills to build new digital solutions will drive massive growth in the digital talent pool. By 2030, demand for technologists with skills in big data, process automation, human-computer interaction, robotics engineering, blockchain, and machine learning will replace 8 percent of traditional tech jobs.

Six per cent of Australians will seek to align their personal values and lifestyle with their work. Workers in charities, social enterprises and health and wellbeing services will become a significant new workforce, with more than 700,000 workers by 2030.