Hairdresser Lisa Seeger is feeling the impact of a tough jobs market.
“I’m a sole income, single parent, paying a mortgage on my own,” Ms Seeger said.
“If I don’t get a [better-paying] job, I’m going to have to start putting the wheels in motion of trying to get my house ready to sell.”
Falling job mobility is making it harder for many Australians to secure better-paying positions and advance their careers.
There are also concerns the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) could result in even bigger changes to the Australian workforce.
After 16 years of running her own salon, Ms Seeger wants a job that is less physically demanding and higher paying.
She is looking at roles in sales, customer service and local government.
Lisa Seeger worries that employers’ use of AI is limiting her chances to change careers. (ABC News: Peter Drought)
But in the six months of trying to find work, she has faced a series of rejections.
“I thought I had a lot to offer, I thought I’d have a lot of transferable skills from running my own business,” she said.
“Everyone keeps telling me, ‘Oh you’ll smash it, you’ll get a job’, but it’s been really disheartening and disappointing.”
Ms Seeger said she believed AI was playing a role in her struggle to find work, with employers using it to weed out applicants without relevant experience.
“We need to remember that sometimes how someone presents on paper isn’t actually who they are in person.”
Do you know more? Contact Fiona Blackwood at blackwood.fiona@abc.net.au.
Despite her struggle in an uncertain job market, Ms Seeger is determined to show her daughter that a career change is possible.
“I’m going to continue to be resilient and try and find a better job that pays better money, [so] that I can provide for her and keep a roof over our heads for the future.”
The Grattan Institute’s Trent Wiltshire said Australia should start preparing for disruption now, saying “the dawn of AI is certainly upon us, it’s in all workplaces”.
There are many uncertainties around how artificial intelligence will affect the workforce. (ABC News: Mark Leonardi)
How has the jobs market changed since the pandemic?
While still relatively low, the unemployment rate of 4.3 per cent in October has been on an upward trajectory for the past three years. It was 3.4 per cent in October 2022.
The number of jobs being advertised over the past year has dropped.
There were 5,000 fewer job vacancies, a drop of 1.5 per cent, over the year to August 2025, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Artificial intelligence is being used by employers and those looking for work. (Unsplash: Israel Andrade)
After the pandemic, there was a big demand for labour.
Since then, job mobility has fallen for a second year in a row — 7.7 per cent of employed people changed their employer or business in the year to February 2025, compared with a job mobility rate of 9.5 per cent in 2022.
“We’ve really come off the back of a jobs boom a couple of years ago and the labour market and the economy has been slowing down,” Blair Chapman, senior economist for jobs website SEEK, said.
Job mobility is important for individual wage growth and the broader economy.
“If you want wage increases, often the best way to get them is to switch jobs,” Mr Chapman said.Why is it getting harder to change careers?
Alongside a slowdown in the economy, an ageing population could be part of the reason job mobility is declining, with more older Australians less likely to change jobs.
Mr Wiltshire said competition and business dynamism had also reduced.
“So that means more legacy firms stay around longer and there’s fewer new start-ups,” he said.
Trent Wiltshire says the government needs to prepare for disruption that will be caused by AI. (ABC News: Peter Drought)
A tighter jobs market in New Zealand could also be having an impact.
The New Zealand unemployment rate was at 5.3 per cent for the September quarter this year, the highest rate in nine years.
“There are a lot of Kiwis looking for jobs in Australia,” Mr Chapman said.
Uncertainty around US tariffs and the promise of AI could be other reasons why businesses are reluctant to increase their headcount.
Businesses use AI to check job applications
Lisa Seeger is concerned that AI is limiting her chances to change careers by eliminating applications without relevant experience.
Mr Chapman said AI was increasingly being used by employers and job seekers.
“Around 20 per cent of new hirers are making use of AI to write their job ads and to streamline that process,” he said.
“A little bit over one-third of candidates are using AI to help write their cover letters and CVs and things like that.”
Blair Chapman says changing jobs is often the best way for workers to get a wage increase. (Supplied)
He said while Seek provided a full list of candidates who had applied for a job to the hirer, AI could be used by the employer to go through applications to make sure a person had relevant experience.
“If you are a forklift driver do you have a forklift licence? AI is making that sort of very tick box exercise much quicker.”
What can be done?
The rapid growth of the use of AI is threatening a range of jobs, including radiologists, middle managers and financial analysts, according to the Grattan Institute’s Trent Wiltshire.
Mr Wiltshire said it was not yet clear whether companies would use AI to replace workers in order to reduce costs or use it to improve the productivity of existing workers.
“There’s a potential doomsday scenario where there’s mass unemployment,” he said.
Artificial intelligence is threatening a range of jobs, Trent Wiltshire says. (AAP: Dan Himbrechts)
Mr Wiltshire said while the doomsday scenario was unlikely, contingency plans were needed and the government should be preparing now.
“The job seeker [unemployment benefit] rate is very low, it’s not going to be adequate for a lot of people,” he said.
Mr Wiltshire said the government should consider unemployment insurance, which is a higher but time-limited payment linked to a person’s previous income.
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