Australia’s tech workforce has gone into reverse just as the federal government’s 1.2 million tech-jobs-by-2030 goal was meant to be gathering pace. New figures from the Department of Industry, Science and Resources (DISR) show about 31,000 tech-related roles disappeared in the year to May 2025.
DISR now estimates there were around 949,000 technology workers in May 2025. Based on the average of the past eight quarters, the country is on track to finish the decade with fewer than one million tech jobs.
The department has formally marked its tech-jobs performance measure as “not met” after three consecutive quarters of decline.
At the same time, more of Australians’ digital spending is flowing to overseas firms. Local retailers and platforms now compete with global e-commerce giants and streaming services that can scale across dozens of markets at once.
Entertainment and gambling show a similar tilt towards offshore operators. Australians are paying an average of around $41 a month for streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video, with most of that revenue booked overseas.
Online gambling is another example of how Australian digital spending can leak overseas, rather than supporting local tech jobs and platforms. Comparison guides for the inclave casinos Australia point out that these brands often advertise better bonuses and withdrawals, all under foreign licences. Australian law prohibits domestic online gambling platforms. In practice, that sends funds to engineering, product, and data teams in overseas hubs. Australian-based studios and platforms trying to operate under local rules have fewer resources to hire.
DISR points out that most of the recent weakness has come from tech roles embedded in non-tech industries, which fell by about 3.9% in the year to May. Tech jobs inside core technology industries also shrank 3.6%, and even non-tech roles in tech firms declined by 3.2%, mirroring global cutbacks.
The steepest drops were in information, media, and telecommunications (down 6.9%), manufacturing (down 2.3%), and administrative services (down 2%).
The broader labour market is also softening. Australia’s unemployment rate has climbed from mid-2022 lows to 4.5% in September 2025, the highest seasonally adjusted reading since November 2021, as job creation slows and the number of unemployed people per vacancy rises.
Jobs and Skills Australia (JSA) estimates that almost 90% of employment growth over the past decade has come from service industries. Many of those roles are outside the high-paying digital occupations policymakers are trying to grow.
Even with the recent downturn, technology remains one of the economy’s most important engines. Closing the digital skills gap and lifting adoption could unlock a further A$25 billion in economic output by 2035, according to ACS.
The numbers show that the tech workforce is still big from a strategic point of view, but it isn’t growing in a straight line anymore. More and more of our customers’ money is going to foreign platforms, like fast-fashion apps and gambling sites. At the same time, Australian policymakers are trying to grow the country’s tech industry and improve the skills of its people. The country may be able to get back on track to its goal of 1.2 million jobs, but only if training, regulations, and industry investment can all adapt quickly to the demand.
