Employers pursuing AI should reskill, not axe, workers

Employers restructuring their workforce to benefit from automation should help reskill workers.

Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Employers restructuring their workforce to benefit from automation would have a responsibility to help reskill workers to avoid redundancies, under a policy to be considered by the ALP national conference this week.

According to the draft national platform to be considered by delegates in Brisbane, Labor will seek to maximise the benefits of new technologies, including artificial intelligence.

The draft platform says Labor wants to position Australia at the forefront of technological change to lift national productivity and competitiveness.

“Labor will ensure that these technologies are adopted in ways that are fair, inclusive and safeguard community interests,” the proposed policy says

“Labor will support people to get the skills needed to share in the gains of technological change, either directly through upskilling to maintain their existing employment, or by reskilling to transition into other secure, well-paid jobs.

“In the event of an employer voluntarily restructuring its workforce to capture benefits of digitisation and automation, it is the employer’s responsibility to proactively support their workers to identify and access reskilling opportunities, in order to avoid unnecessary redundancies.”

Asked how fearful workers should be about artificial intelligence, the Minister for Industry and Science Ed Husic told Sky News on Monday automation had been around for generations and “leaps” in agriculture and manufacturing in the 1950s and 1960s had a big impact on jobs.

Mr Husic said companies which were automating, “may actually put more people on”.

“When you hear about so many businesses and industries that have skill shortages, they’ll turn to automation because they have got to get the job done.

“So it’s not actually in some cases the problem of taking workers out of work. It’s finding workers to perform it. If they can’t, they’ll look to … automation.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said on Monday the government’s position on the stage 3 tax cuts had not changed in response to the United Workers Union calling for them to be revamped.

UWU national secretary Tim Kennedy urged the Albanese government to use the ALP ­national conference to commit to reviewing the stage 3 tax cuts, declaring they need to be revamped to help low- and middle-income workers through the cost-of-living crisis.

Mr Chalmers said the government’s position had not changed “but we welcome and embrace people having the opportunity to raise these sorts of issues”.