{"id":107881,"date":"2025-08-31T02:20:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T02:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/107881\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T02:20:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T02:20:15","slug":"as-openai-advertise-jobs-in-australia-is-the-ai-boom-hurting-graduate-roles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/107881\/","title":{"rendered":"As OpenAI advertise jobs in Australia is the AI boom hurting graduate roles"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cAI is making it much harder for juniors to compete,\u201d says Sarah Moran.<\/p>\n

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Moran is the chief operating officer of AI start-up PatientNotes. She is also the co-founder of Girl Geek Academy, a movement to bring 1 million women and girls into technology careers by 2030.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe junior developers still far outperform AI, but the situation is creating a catch-22. How do juniors develop their skills if they can\u2019t get hired in the first place? Career development typically happens on the job, with mentoring and real-world experience, yet tech companies prefer to hire senior developers, leaving graduates struggling to break in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moran runs regular workshops for high school students on AI and one of those students, 14-year-old Zoya Faruqui, is choosing to remain optimistic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like learning about tech is a good thing, I don\u2019t think it goes to waste,\u201d she says. \u201cTo make AI and robots you need people. Some simple jobs might be replaced, but there will be new jobs created to work with AI and make sure it\u2019s used in the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jayden Nguyen, who is set to complete his computer science degree at UNSW later this year, agrees with Faruqui. After completing a three-month paid internship at Canva over the summer, he\u2019s secured a graduate role at a big tech firm.<\/p>\n

\"UNSW<\/p>\n

UNSW computer science student Jayden Nguyen has secured a graduate role at a big tech firm. He says students will have to start building their industry experience earlier as AI eliminates \u201cgrunt coders\u201d.Credit: Louise Kennerley<\/p>\n

\u201cAI is automating the grunt coders, the ones who code without thinking as much. But AI can\u2019t replace people who work to build things, synthesise stuff together,\u201d says the 22-year-old, who took on a teaching assistant role while studying in part to demonstrate to employers how he can communicate technical concepts clearly.<\/p>\n

Nguyen says in his experience, AI can effectively generate a general solution, but it struggles to link working parts of code together to form the intricate networks needed for scalable systems, and nail specific requests. He also says it doesn\u2019t have the \u201cintimate cybersecurity knowledge\u201d required to understand how to make code more secure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s more to software engineering, more to developer tech roles than just churning out code,\u201d says Nguyen. \u201dIt\u2019s still a really good tool. It definitely makes people faster … it\u2019s just, you still need a lot of [critical] thinking [skills].\u201d<\/p>\n

\"High<\/p>\n

High school stuident Zoya Faruqui, pictured with her mother Kavitha, is keen on a future career in technology.<\/p>\n

Critical thinking skills, however, are only some of the qualities candidates for entry-level roles will have to already have finessed before applying. With AI eliminating the need for \u201cgrunt coders\u201d, graduates will need more than technical skills to stand out in the recruitment process, which is only getting more competitive.<\/p>\n

The numbers: a market cooling fast<\/p>\n

Some of the statistics make for grim reading for young people like Faruqui, whom Nguyen says will need to start looking to get industry experience, such as internships, hackathons or extra certifications, earlier on in their degrees. The overall pipeline for entry-level positions seems to be shrinking.<\/p>\n

According to Indeed, job postings targeted at graduates across all sectors in Australia are down 15 per cent in 2025, following a 24 per cent drop in 2024.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s still healthier than pre-pandemic levels \u2013 about 50 per cent above where they were in 2019 \u2013 but over the past two years the trend is downward,\u201d says Indeed Australia senior economist Callam Pickering.<\/p>\n

Pickering cautions against blaming AI alone. He says what we\u2019re really seeing is a softer economic environment overall. White-collar graduate opportunities are moving almost in lockstep with apprenticeships in plumbing, childcare and hairdressing.<\/p>\n

\u201cGenerative AI is pretty useless for most of the roles that require an apprenticeship,\u201d he says. \u201cI think the graduate market is operating very similar to the overall job market.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, AI\u2019s fingerprints are showing up. In July, 4.1 per cent of Australian job ads mentioned AI \u2013 nearly double last year\u2019s figure.<\/p>\n

What roles might be \u201cAI-proof\u201d? LinkedIn\u2019s Jobs on the Rise 2025 report offers clues. It lists the top five fastest-growing roles in Australia: English teacher, travel specialist, sommelier, server, and electrical engineer.<\/p>\n

Hospitality and travel roles have also surged post-pandemic, reflecting pent-up demand. Teaching is booming too, buoyed by international students and global demand for English. Cybersecurity also remains one of the hottest fields.<\/p>\n

Early roles shifting, but not vanishing<\/p>\n

Amid some bleak broader numbers, Australia\u2019s tech giants insist that their doors are open to juniors, and the Tech Council of Australia says ChatGPT\u2019s launch<\/a> hasn\u2019t yet impacted graduate outcomes. Enterprise software maker Atlassian has just hired 108 graduates to commence in February 2026, and says it expects to hire a similar number in 2027. Canva too says it\u2019s still hiring graduates and junior engineers.<\/p>\n

Canva, which makes online design software, has been one of the most aggressive adopters of AI but chief technology officer Brendan Humphreys is adamant that coding is still a valuable skill.<\/p>\n

\u201cFresh perspectives and early career talent are vital in tech, and the AI boom doesn\u2019t change that,\u201d he says. \u201cThat said, the shape of early career roles is evolving. Entry-level coders will increasingly find themselves working alongside AI tools, which means success will be less about writing code line by line and more about understanding systems, solving problems, and critically assessing the output of those tools.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe demand for human judgment \u2013 to guide, verify, and integrate AI into real products \u2013 is not going away.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018The software engineers of the future will be conductors, not musicians. They\u2019ll orchestrate AI performance rather than write code line by line.\u2019<\/p>\n

Alyse Sue, PALO IT lead architect<\/p>\n

Alyse Sue has been a software engineer at numerous start-ups and is now lead architect for global tech consulting company PALO IT. She\u2019s based in Singapore and says anecdotally, she\u2019s seeing tech companies quietly cutting junior engineers and replacing them with AI tools.<\/p>\n

Modern AI models like GPT-5, Claude and Llama can generate code in hundreds of languages \u2013 even obscure ones \u2013 and are particularly adept at data analysis, website design and automation.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us, we\u2019re moving towards a model where 95 per cent of coding work is done by AI tools like GitHub Copilot, and our engineers are responsible for working alongside AI to ensure everything works as it should,\u201d Sue says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe software engineers of the future will be conductors, not musicians. They\u2019ll orchestrate AI performance rather than write code line by line. Rather than hiring junior programmers working on isolated code, companies will focus on developers who can understand entire systems and how they work together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Hugh<\/p>\n

Hugh Williams has led engineering at some of the world\u2019s most successful tech companies. He also invented infinite scroll.Credit: Eamon Gallagher<\/p>\n

Hugh Williams is not a recent graduate. Williams has held the most senior engineering position that any Australian has held at a big tech company: he was a vice president of engineering at Google where he managed more than 1000 engineers for Google Maps. He left Silicon Valley to tackle STEM literacy in Australia, founding Code for Schools in 2017, a program that has now reached more than 200,000 students nationally.<\/p>\n

\"Associate<\/p>\n

Associate Professor Sandra Peter compares AI to teenage sex: \u201cEveryone\u2019s talking about it. Everyone thinks everyone else is doing it. Few are getting it right. And there are safety issues. Education can really help.\u201dCredit: SMH<\/p>\n

He rails against the idea that the need for coding skills will go away, and says that a computer science degree is still worth its weight in gold. And his favourite analogy when talking about AI? Power tools.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese new AI tools are like power tools for carpenters,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019re far more productive than getting out the hammer and chisel. But not every man or woman can suddenly build a skyscraper or a bridge.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are getting a bit confused. Everybody at home can now use AI to vibe code an app, but that app is never going to scale, it\u2019s not going to be safe or secure, and it\u2019s not going to make it to the global stage. It\u2019s a toy. And that\u2019s what\u2019s getting lost here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr Sandra Peter, director of Sydney Executive Plus and associate professor at the University of Sydney\u2019s Business School, deploys a different analogy for AI: teenage sex.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone\u2019s talking about it,\u201d she says. \u201cEveryone thinks everyone else is doing it. Few are getting it right. And there are safety issues. Education can really help.\u201d<\/p>\n

The AI paradox<\/p>\n

The irony is that AI could be both a job-creator and job-killer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should be taking [AI] very seriously \u2026 but possibly not in the sense of it being a threat [to our jobs],\u201d says Professor Janine Dixon, director of the Centre of Policy Studies at Victoria University.<\/p>\n

Dixon helped model AI\u2019s labour market impact for Jobs and Skills Australia, and says AI is \u201ca new technology that we need to master\u201d.<\/p>\n

Her findings are sobering but not apocalyptic. In her simulation, technology eventually replaced around a third of all jobs. But unemployment rose only two percentage points, largely because the change happens gradually, and because new roles emerge in tandem.<\/p>\n

She compares it to when ATMs replaced bank tellers.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously people who had been bank tellers, a lot of them lost their jobs and had to retrain. And it was disruptive to them. But they\u2019re not still unemployed today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n

Dixon and others see \u201cAI literacy\u201d as the next universal skill \u2013 comparable to learning to read, or to the digital literacy wave that swept the 1990s. LinkedIn\u2019s data backs this up: AI literacy is on the list of fastest-growing skills in Australia.<\/p>\n

The hardest challenge may not be for today\u2019s graduates but instead their leaders, who have to grapple with how to balance headcount, AI, human experience and productivity.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe I\u2019m being critical of my generation who are still running the world,\u201d says Williams, the former Google and Microsoft executive. \u201cBut they can have a very old-school way of thinking. They say, \u2018I want more AI roles\u2019, then they\u2019ll make up new job titles for people who can come into their company.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat they need to be saying is \u2018let\u2019s bring in bright young people who want to change the world\u2019. One of the fabulous qualities of graduates is that they will come in and operate that way regardless of the title that you give them. Just remove as many barriers as possible and let them disrupt in an interesting way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where to next?<\/p>\n

Ultimately, what advice should anxious parents be giving their kids, if they\u2019re keen on a career in technology?<\/p>\n

Moran says it\u2019s important for parents to use AI tools themselves so they can help their kids understand how it works.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know many parents don\u2019t fully understand AI themselves. But here\u2019s the thing, that doesn\u2019t matter. You don\u2019t need to be an expert to teach someone,\u201d she says. \u201cYou just need to stay one step ahead of the person you\u2019re teaching.\u201d<\/p>\n

For both students and their parents, Williams\u2019 advice is simple.<\/p>\n

\u201cLearn the fundamentals of computer science. And if you don\u2019t do that at school, consider it at university. Not only will you become a great problem solver, you will create the next generation of these tools that are changing the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Start the day with a summary of the day\u2019s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAI is making it much harder for juniors to compete,\u201d says Sarah Moran. Loading Moran is the chief…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-107881","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}