Malaysian office workers eyeing Australia: how AI is changing white-collar jobs

News · 2026-10-07 · 3 min read

A Malaysian office worker speaks with an employment adviser in a sunlit Australian office about workplace changes.

A lot of Malaysians weighing a move to Australia picture themselves at a desk: an office, a tech team or an admin role. That picture is shifting. Employment lawyers across Australia report that cases about office staff displaced by artificial intelligence (AI) now land on their desks every week. Alongside that, fresh survey research found that one in three Australians wish they had picked another career.

Where the redundancies are appearing

One employment law specialist described it as fairly routine now to act for office workers whose jobs went because of AI. Her busiest areas are copywriting, coding, data analytics and administration, since AI can already handle a good share of the tasks involved. She recalled that two years ago nobody in her profession was even thinking about it, and today her practice probably sees a case like this weekly.

In her view, Australia has a cushion because so many of its jobs are physical, yet the country is not ready for a large shift. She expects unions to use coming enterprise agreement talks to ask for clauses blocking AI replacement of staff, or for bigger redundancy payments if it happens.

How workers feel

Roughly half of those surveyed have not yet noticed AI affecting their own work.
32 per cent would have picked a different career had they known how widespread AI would become.
About 40 per cent felt unprepared for major changes.

A push for firmer rules

An independent senator for the ACT compared AI to a freight train heading for workplaces, and criticised the federal government for a light-touch stance. He said thousands of jobs are already gone and agreed that AI driving unemployment to 10 per cent could not be ruled out if the technology moved too fast. His call is for an overarching framework, including a National Artificial Intelligence Act, which the government decided not to pursue. It has issued expectations for industry instead.

A business academic at a Sydney university suggested that Australia may have exposed its workforce without noticing, since office jobs have multiplied while industries such as manufacturing have shrunk. Data also showed white-collar work in the US fell in 2025.

The official line

The federal government sees AI as a way to lift productivity and living standards. Its National AI Plan is meant to capture the opportunities and share the benefits while keeping Australians safe, with secure, ongoing work at the centre. Early figures from the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations point to a workforce changing no faster than usual, though the government stresses these are observations, not predictions. An AI Safety Institute is being set up, and the Employment Minister's office wants AI used to create good jobs, not threaten them.

Takeaways for Malaysian jobseekers

No one can say how this will unfold, but some habits help. Study what a role truly involves, and lean towards work where judgement and people skills matter. If you work in a hands-on trade, remember that physical jobs are part of what protects Australia, and that trades are usually assessed again abroad, so find out how your Malaysian Skills Certificate (SKM) would be treated. Keep certified copies and English translations of documents in Bahasa Malaysia on file, and keep building AI and digital skills, which the government itself says are important.

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