Working from home is great but is it an own goal for young jobseekers? The evidence is in

June 22, 2026 — 1:30pm

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On Friday, millions of Australians will be “working” from home, as the Socceroos take on Paraguay in the World Cup. It’s fair to think that if you measured the country’s productivity over a single day, it would probably be negative.

There’s no doubt that working from home is one of the few pandemic legacies Australians are grateful has become the new normal.

Roughly half of Australian workers now work from home to some degree. Another defining shift, perhaps less welcome, is artificial intelligence, which is now being blamed for destroying the entry-level job market.

AI has become the villain of the modern economy, linked to soaring electricity demand, stock market bubbles and fears of an “AI job-pocalypse”.

But when it comes to its role in youth employment, the timing does not quite fit the narrative because the deterioration in youth employment predates the widespread adoption of generative AI.

Increasingly, research instead points to working from home as an overlooked factor in graduate difficulties,........

© WA Today