The federal government just published its first official report on AI and employment, and if you run a trade or hands-on service business, the headline finding will surprise you: you’re among the least exposed to AI job displacement in the country.

The report, AI and Employment in Australia, was put out by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations through the Office of the Chief Economist on 8 July 2026. It’s the first time the federal government has formally mapped which jobs are most and least likely to be affected by AI. The results don’t line up with the usual tech-industry framing.

The Clean Split

The report draws a clear line between two categories of work.

On one side: trades, aged care workers, and drivers. These roles involve physical skill, spatial judgment, and human presence. Things AI currently can’t replicate in a real-world environment. The report projects 9.5% employment growth for this group. Demand is rising, and AI isn’t replacing these workers anytime soon.

On the other side: telemarketers, clerks, accountants, and receptionists. These roles involve a lot of information processing, pattern matching, and routine communication. Exactly what current AI tools are good at. The projection here is 5.6% growth. Positive, but slower, with more uncertainty about what the job looks like in five years.

Both groups are still growing. This isn’t a displacement story, it’s a divergence story. Some roles are accelerating, some are slowing down.

What This Means If You’re a Tradie or Trade Business Owner

If you run a plumbing business, an electrical contracting firm, a cleaning crew, or a building company, this report is actually good news. Your core workforce is in the low-exposure category. The work requires physical presence, problem-solving in variable environments, and licensed skills that take years to develop. AI doesn’t replace that.

The AI data centre boom is already making it harder to hire tradies in Australia, with more demand for skilled physical work, not less. This report reinforces that.

Where AI does help trades businesses is on the admin side. Scheduling, quoting, invoicing, customer follow-up. The back-office work that buries small operators. Using AI tools to handle those tasks doesn’t threaten your workforce, it frees up the people doing trade work to do more of it.

What This Means If You Employ Admin Staff or Bookkeepers

This is where the report carries a real planning signal.

Receptionists, bookkeepers, data entry clerks, and general admin roles are in the higher-exposure category. That doesn’t mean those jobs disappear overnight. It means the nature of the role is shifting, and businesses that aren’t thinking about that transition are going to get caught.

How Australian accounting firms use AI without losing client trust is worth reading if you’re in this space. The firms doing it well are repositioning staff toward relationship management and advisory work, not cutting them.

The practical question for small business owners: are your admin staff doing work that AI can already do reliably? And if so, what are they doing instead? The businesses that come out ahead are the ones that shift their people toward judgment-heavy work before they’re forced to.

The Bigger Picture

Australia has been slow to quantify AI’s effect on employment. Most of what circulated before this report was either US-based research or vendor-funded projections. This is the first time DEWR and the Office of the Chief Economist have put actual Australian employment data behind the analysis.

That makes it worth taking seriously. Not as a prediction of exactly what will happen, but as a signal about where the pressure is building and where it isn’t.

Australia added 76,300 AI-related jobs last year even as economists warned about displacement. The reality is more complicated than either the optimist or the doomsday framing suggests. This report adds nuance to that picture.

Three Takeaways

Tradies and hands-on service businesses are in the safe zone, for now. The “for now” matters. AI’s physical capabilities are improving. The window where trades are clearly low-exposure is real, but it’s not permanent.

Admin roles are a planning signal, not a crisis. The 5.6% growth projection is still positive. The issue is trajectory. Businesses that treat this as a reason to think about role design now will be better positioned than those who wait.

This is Australian data on Australian employment. That matters more than most AI reports you’ve read. Use it in conversations with staff, advisers, or anyone else trying to understand what the transition actually looks like locally.