Australia ahead in AI training, as tech reshapes entry-level hiring

Deel research reveals that 70 per cent of organisations moved beyond the pilot phase for AI – showing that AI has exited the experimental phase, the company’s head of policy has said.

In a recent HR Leader Podcast episode, head of policy at Deel, Nick Catino (pictured), spoke about Deel’s research made in partnership with global research firm International Data Corporation (IDC), where they surveyed around 5,500 IT executives and business leaders across 22 countries to explore workforce trends.

Based on its findings, 70 per cent of organisations are moving beyond the pilot phase, two in three companies expected entry-level hiring to slow down, 91 per cent said that their organisations are already changing roles with some being displaced because of AI, and two in three companies were found to be investing in AI training to reskill their own teams.

AI reshaping hiring

Catino noted that early career roles are changing fast. According to its research, Deel found that 98 per cent of Aussie organisations said that AI is already reshaping how they hire or the skills that they are looking for in candidates for junior roles. For Catino, this highlights the importance of AI fluency for candidates applying for entry-level roles.

In addition, the research showed that eight per cent of Australian organisations said that they have stopped hiring entry-level workers entirely, while 68 per cent of these Australian businesses said that they were looking for technical skills certifications such as AI tools, coding, and boot camps – which Catino believes is one of the highest rates globally.

“That suggests Australia is a little bit ahead in training their own workforces…My [reading] of that data [is that] Australian businesses are adopting AI quickly and workers are probably starting to see some of the same pressures that they're seeing worldwide around entry-level pathways and skills,” Catino said.

AI is making work better, dramatically changing the workforce

“I do think that technology will make work fundamentally better…by getting rid of some of those repetitive tasks and it'll make businesses more efficient. And that's just the work we're really talking about, plus all the other benefits,” Catino said.

Despite this, Catino said that the downsides of the technology include the pockets of people impacted by workforce changes, such as in automation, global trade, and AI.

“You better make sure you're using AI and having that fluency because it is going to be expected. You don't want to be one of those people that gets left behind when the nature of work fundamentally changes,” he added.

“I think I am a glass-half-full person, and I take the optimist view of this being positive. But we also need to realise it will dramatically change the workforce in maybe the next 10 years. What automation did in 100 years [and] trade did over the last 50 years, AI could do over the next 10 years,” he concluded.