Worried about losing your job to artificial intelligence?
New data has shone a light on the suburbs where homeowners are most at risk of losing their jobs to AI – and in turn, are most at risk of potentially being unable to make their mortgage repayments – and those that are the safest.
SuburbTrends data scientist Kent Lardner’s figures paint a frightening picture for residents in Adelaide’s CBD, with the highest number of residents employed in the information media and communication fields – a field Mr Lardner identifies as carrying a 90 per cent likelihood of its employees being impacted by AI. There were 172 of these.
It also has a further 1048 people employed in professional, scientific and scientific services – a field carrying an 80 per cent likelihood of being impacted by AI.
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This is second only to the Unley Parkside area with 1145 in this sector.
Financial and Insurance services also carry an 80 per cent likelihood of being impacted by AI, and the highest concentration of these workers can be found in Plympton with 435, followed by Rostrevor – Magill with 386.
Arts and recreational services jobs carry the lowest risk of AI impact at 10 per cent, and the highest population of these workers are found in Plympton, while Fulham and Clarendon have the lowest number of the highest risk professions – information, media and telecommunications.
Ray White Agent Sherrie Stow outside a Fulham home she is selling. Picture: Tim Joy
Ray White Semaphore agent Sherrie Stow who is currently selling a home in Fulham, said when househunting there was a lot more to consider than just a suburb’s occupational make-up, though in some areas it should be a factor.
“In that suburb, a lot of people who have been there are long term and very established and that probably means they’re unlikely to be rocked by the next wave,” she said.
“Diversity is a really good thing, as it means different shops, different restaurants, different amenities get activated and it all helps bring a suburb to life.
“If everyone is employed in the one sector it can have a real impact – in mining communities, if that stops it completely changes the landscape of a town, and you see towns where rail used to go through it and now it doesn’t – something as simple as that completely changes how it functions, so I would definitely be looking for an eclectic mix in an area instead of just the one avenue in case it gets taken away as that would definitely affect values.”
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Mr Lardner said experts like Mo Gawdat have warned AI will ”disrupt labour markets far faster than societies can adapt”, yet he says Australian leadership remains largely silent. “Without a coherent transition plan, we risk sleepwalking into a generational labour shock,” he said.
He said the worst-case scenario is that AI would create “rust-belt suburbs”.
“You would have suburbs that emulate the rust belt towns of the US, where they exported manufacturing jobs,” he said.
Suburb Trends founder Kent Lardner.
“This time it will be exporting white collar jobs.
“The real risk is we end up with our own rust belt, where a mass of people are leaving, or selling their homes at once because they’ve lost jobs.”
Mr Lardner noted that it was unlikely this trend would be the norm and that most markets would be relatively “safe”, outside of a few “clusters” where the impacts will be more pronounced.
“I would argue the work from home trend has distributed some of the risk so you wouldn’t have as many people all in the same place,” he said.
A lot would depend on how many of the local homeowners had new mortgages, he said.
“We know the industries where jobs are more exposed but what we don’t know is how it will affect the individual.
“Someone who has owned their home for many years will be less affected than someone with a new mortgage.”
– with Aidan Devine
English (US) · 