Workday’s 2026 Global Workforce Report finds Australian employees are more optimistic, confident in their skills, and ready to adapt than global peers.
Jo-Anne Ruhl
Vice President and Managing Director
Workday ANZ
In brief: Australian data from Workday’s Global Workforce Report, The Adaptability Advantage, tells a story of resilience. Employees are more optimistic about their career prospects, more confident in their skills, and more likely to see progression opportunities than the global average. For executives, the opportunity is to convert that readiness into business advantage through AI-enabled productivity, skills development, and clearer internal mobility.
Australian executives are ending 2026 on something of an economic tightrope: balancing persistent inflation, elevated interest rates, sluggish productivity, and growing pressure to prove the ROI of AI investments.
It's not an easy environment to lead through.
Technology decisions are becoming workforce decisions. Skills decisions are becoming growth decisions. And for many organisations, the focus is shifting to how quickly people can adapt as work changes.
That's what makes the Australian findings in Workday’s new Global Workforce Report, The Adaptability Advantage, so encouraging.
They suggest that, even as AI continues to reshape work, Australian employees are bringing a level of confidence and resilience that stands out globally.
Around the world, Workday data shows a workforce that appears steady, with internal job changes, promotions, headcount growth, and hiring all flat year over year.
But underneath that stability, work is changing quickly. Nearly 40% of employees reported reorganisation or restructuring in the past year, and 23% said they worked somewhere that experienced redundancies.
Australia is experiencing this change too. Forty percent of Australian employees said they experienced or observed reorganisation or restructuring in the past year, while 22% reported redundancies.
And yet, the local picture is more hopeful than those numbers alone suggest.
In the first half of the year, 59% of Australian organisations expanded their headcount—one of the strongest rates globally—while 40% of Australian workers said they felt optimistic about their career prospects in their current organisation, compared with 35% globally.
That gives Australian leaders something valuable to build on.
The opportunity now is to understand what is driving that resilience, and how easily it could be lost if employees do not get the clarity, skills, and support they need next.
When the path is unclear, even capable people can start to hold back.
Report
One of the clearest messages from the global report is that people may be staying in place, but their work is still moving around them.
Promotions were broadly flat year over year, and lateral internal job changes became less common at 57% of employers.
For employees, that can make progress feel harder to see.
They may be learning new tools, taking on new responsibilities, or working through new structures without the familiar signals of career movement.
The good news? Australian employees are more likely than the global average to say they can see realistic opportunities to progress in their organisation.
They are also more likely to understand the skills they need to succeed, and to feel supported by their employer in developing those skills.
That matters because confidence shapes how people respond to change.
When employees can see where they are going, they are more likely to lean into new ways of working. When the path is unclear, even capable people can start to hold back.
Australian employees also appear more willing to act on that confidence.
They were more likely than the global average to have formally pursued a promotion in the past year, and more likely to say promotion opportunities had increased in their organisation.
For leaders, the lesson is practical. Internal mobility only works when opportunities are visible.
Employees need to see paths forward, and organisations need better ways to recognise and deploy the talent they already have.
Employers are moving from general AI awareness toward practical execution.
AI is now part of this conversation for every leadership team.
The global data shows that employees who use AI most often are also the most likely to expect their roles to change.
Among employees using AI for almost all their work, three quarters expect it to create new career opportunities, while 62% say it will make their current skills less valuable.
That is a very human response to a major shift. People can see the opportunity, but they also want to know what it means for their own future.
Australian decision-makers appear to be leaning into the productivity opportunity. Forty-seven percent expect AI or automation to drive higher productivity from existing staff, compared with 40% globally.
That is encouraging, but productivity gains will only be sustainable if employees understand how AI changes their work, what skills matter next, and how they can continue to grow.
The skills signal is already shifting. Across Workday job listings, demand for applied AI skills rose 51% between September 2025 and July 2026, while foundational AI skills peaked in January 2026 and then declined.
Employers are moving from general AI awareness toward practical execution: building, integrating, and applying AI to real workflows.
One finding deserves particular attention. Mentions of management and leadership skills fell 7%, while learning and development skills fell 13%. Those are the very capabilities that help people make sense of change.
Tools can reshape a task. Leaders help people understand what that change means, how to build confidence, and where to focus their effort.
As Ashley Goldsmith, Workday Chief People Officer, says in the report: “To capture the true value of AI at work, employees need clarity about where the business is heading and how their roles evolve alongside our strategy.”
For Australian leaders, that is the work ahead. AI strategy and workforce strategy need to be connected clearly enough that people can see where they fit.
Australia’s stronger results should give leaders confidence. They should not lead to complacency. After all, there are still signs of pressure.
Thirty-eight percent of Australian employees said they are likely to look externally for a new role in the next 12 months, slightly above the global figure of 36%.
Thirty-four percent said they feel stuck in their current job even though they would prefer to leave.
Trust measures are also steady rather than strong.
Sixty percent of Australian employees said changes affecting employees are implemented fairly. The same share said their employer cares about them as a person.
These numbers tell us that Australia’s advantage is real, but not guaranteed.
Employees may be feeling more optimistic here than elsewhere, but that optimism depends on how organisations lead through the next phase of change.
The global report describes an engagement cloud over the workplace, with employees looking for clearer strategy, stronger manager support, and recognition.
Australia has a chance to act before that cloud thickens.
That does not require leaders to have every answer. It does require them to communicate direction, explain why change is happening, and give employees practical ways to build the skills their future work will need.
The global report notes that organisations in Australia are among the healthiest in the study, with strong headcount growth, low turnover, and a resilient market, even as time-to-hire has slowed.
This gives Australian executives an opportunity to move beyond reassurance and into activation: helping people adapt faster, move more easily, and understand how their work connects to the next phase of business growth.
The report’s conclusion is also clear: AI transformation is an opportunity to decide what work should look like next, including how roles, skills, systems, and ways of working need to evolve for human-AI collaboration.
Australian employees appear ready for that conversation. The task now is to make readiness useful.
That means clearer strategy, stronger investment in skills, more visible internal career pathways, and managers who are supported to lead people through change.
Adaptability can help organisations keep moving while uncertainty remains. For Australian executives, that may be one of the most important advantages to build on in 2027.
Methodology
The Global Workforce Report draws on two data sources. Workday platform data from products including Human Capital Management, Peakon Employee Voice, and Recruiting. Our data covers 12 industries, 5 company-size bands, and 19 countries, for organisations with at least 250 employees. Australia-specific workforce findings draw on data from approximately 135 employers.
Workday platform data is supplemented by external survey research across two panels: a global employee survey of 6,001 respondents (with decision-maker questions answered by approximately 1,780), and a related AI@Work study of 5,944 workers across six markets — the US, UK, Canada, Australia, France, and Germany — with AI-specific questions asked of the roughly 5,411 who use AI at work. Each market includes approximately 1,000 respondents.
Report
Beneath a steady jobs market, work is changing quickly. Discover how organisations can turn adaptability into a business advantage.