Creative solutions. Creativity, innovation and sustainable jobs in South Australia

Existing technologies make a range of occupations and tasks within occupations vulnerable to
automation. The likely extent and pace of automation will be mediated by a range of factors
including the relative benefits and costs of automation along with organisational capacity to
absorb new technologies successfully.
• Around 2 in every 5 (41.3%) South Australian jobs are at high risk of automation. While this is
similar to that found for Australia, South Australian jobs were more likely to be at medium risk
and less likely to be at low risk, compared with the nation as whole.
• Susceptibility to automation in South Australia declined by 5.6% over the ten years to 2014,
noting that heavy employment losses have been experienced in manufacturing industry - around
25,000 over the last ten years representing more than one quarter (25.9%) of the earlier (2006)
workforce. Related research focusing on vulnerability of tasks to automation argues that less
than 5 percent of occupations could be fully automated using existing technologies. Overall it
argues that 50 percent of tasks within jobs could potentially be automated.
• Digital technologies contributed an additional 58% to the Australian economy from 2011 to 2013-
14, increasing from $50 to $79 billion.
• In Australia, approximately $90.2 billion is estimated to be contributed to the national economy
every year by the creative industries, adding $45.9 billion to the GDP and $3.2 billion of exports.
• In 2011, 5.3% of the Australian creative workforce were employed in South Australia contributing
a 4.5% share of the State’s employment. Between 2006 and 2011 the average annual growth
rate of creative employment in Australia was 2.8%, forty percent higher than the total workforce’s
annual growth rate of 2%.
• Three substantial creative industries were identified in South Australia - information, media and
telecommunications (28.9% of the creative workforce); professional, scientific and technical
services (24.6%); and arts and recreation services (20.8%). These three industries comprise a
total of 73,700 employees (an 8.9% share of South Australian employment), one quarter
(n=18,200) of whom are employed in creative occupations.
• There is considerable variation in the expected impact of automation on occupations. Around
24.0% of the creative occupation workforce are considered vulnerable to automation – whereas
54.0% of those in all other occupations are considered vulnerable.