The great challenge for the new Albanese Government is to make sure that its policies become more pro-business.

Without said policies, we’ll be saddled with two big problems.

First, productivity. Treasurer Jim Chalmers has told us productivity must increase to ensure inflation doesn’t get to worrying levels. We know how that looks!

Higher productivity is also needed to ensure we see higher levels of real income. That is, Australians will see their income have greater purchasing power.

Second, the workforce wll face real theats to their c desk jobs thanks to AI. It may not do the best work, but it’s cheaper and easier to manage. Especially if the government makes it harder to keep people employed.

Right now, workplace insurers are experiencing a surge in compensation claims. WorkSafe Victoria has experienced a 46% increase in workers compensation costs, for example.

Being a boss has become particularly challenging. The lure of artificial intelligence and the use of robots will become attractive alternatives to employing ‘real’ live people, if the Albanese Government cant balance protections for both employees over employers.

In the US, HR experts are already trying to see how AI will threaten jobs and how employees can be protected from the threats from this new technology. And it comes as the U.N. Trade and Development agency warned in an April report that AI could affect 40% of jobs worldwide and widen inequality between nations.

While some employers are pondering how they add AI to their production process and keep their employees, others question the wisdom of job protection.

“We need to establish that protecting employment might not be the right mindset,” Tomasz Kurczyk, chief information technology officer at Prudential Singapore, told CNBC Make It. “The question is: ‘What can we do to make sure that we adapt employment?’”.

“It’s like trying to prevent a tsunami wave. We know protection will not necessarily be effective. So, it’s thinking really how we can adapt,” he surmised.

Microsoft – which has its own proverbial skin in the AI game, has found in its research that: “47% of leaders say that upskilling their existing workforce is a top priority, and notably, 33% are considering headcount reductions.

It’s good that some bosses are actively planning for the “tsunami” of AI and caring about their employees but a third are thinking about cost savings by killing jobs.

Unemployment is on the rise in Australia. And there are no business indicators saying the last three years of the Albanese Government have made life easier for employers.

If the new Labor Government really wants to raise the standards of living of as many Australians as possible, it will need to make employing easier not harder.

If it doesn’t, AI will become embattled employers best buddy.