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Good morning AusCorp. This month we're talking about festive-season misbehaviour, the quiet reality that your boss can absolutely read those AI chats, and why AusCorp and GYG burritos might be the coldest corporate synergy of the year.

Stress-related absences have jumped from 42% to 57%, so if you’re feeling it too, you’re in good company - we’re here, and also running from our problems (literally).

We are known as the one stop shop for Aussie Corporates and it has been one of our visions to bring salary transparency to our AusCorp Community.

We are excited to let you in on a little product we have been building quietly in the background for the past few months. Salary Vault is our new benchmarking tool for salary transparency.

We are currently looking for volunteers to help provide anonymous user feedback on our very own community-driven personalised salary intelligence tool.

If you would be interested in testing the beta version of our platform, feel free to drop your email address here and we'll send you an invitation!

💡 Brains Trust

1. Keep your friends close and your colleagues closer.

Last month we asked how your workplaces were celebrating Christmas, and the picture was exactly what you’d expect for 2025. While most companies are quietly scaling back, a handful are still splurging on yachts, breakout rooms and self-funded experiences. And if your company doesn’t partake in end of year celebrations, we hope your building lobby at least graced you with a decked out Christmas tree.

As the days get longer and we enter this time of year where half the office disappears and the other half mentally checks out, for this segment we are intentionally skirting over the passionate NSFW stories of debauchery that you’d expect from corporate Australia, and remind you all to not “sh*t where you eat”. Although a surprising number of senior directors (mostly men) still need that constant reminder.

In true Australian spirit, we corporates love a bit of diversity in our festivities. Amongst the many stories of drunk interns, we heard that many love to drunk dial managers, hook up with directors, and even go as far as throwing a Maccas register at someone else post-Christmas party. We would especially love to hear from the individual who managed to outright stole the toilet door off of a women’s bathroom cubicle. In previous years, we hear KPMG and Sony Entertainment took things down a different path with Oompa Loompas on skates delivering food from bowls strapped to their heads.

With all the summer vacationers out and about this time of year, we are quietly asking those at Deloitte to track down the grad that threw up at their COO’s feet at the Deloitte Christmas party in the Crown Melbourne, 10 or so years ago because chances are, he’s probably a Partner right about now.

This Flat White was made with

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2. Your information is not being used to train our LLMs but it may or may not be viewed by your Executive team.

A few readers have asked whether their companies can actually see what they’re typing into chatbots or a company’s nominated CopilotGPT. While the tech giants behind these tools aren’t using your company conversations to train its language models, there is absolutely nothing stopping an employer from reviewing your chat history. Yes, we’ve seen it. So maybe don’t go fully unhinged when you abuse GPT (even if verbal abuse actually helps it perform better).

We’re finding that companies are simply not able to keep up with the current pace of AI. And honestly, neither can Australia as a whole. Fewer than one in 20 businesses in Australia are using AI properly while the national tech sector has even shrunk for the first time since 2020, shedding more than 30,000 jobs and falling below 950,000 workers. So while the broader economy looks like it’s in this weird moment of stasis waiting for inflation to go down and rates to go down with it, it seems that inside most firms it feels like everyone including senior management is bracing for whatever comes next.

It does vary across industries though. With Deloitte all the professional services companies now reselling AI gibberish in the form of consulting deliverables, law firms (like Allens) are supposedly recruiting more humans to supervise the robots we built to replace humans. The major law firms are hiring more lawyers, with non-partner roles up 5% to nearly 18,800, because no one wants a repeat of the Deloitte incident(s). Someone has to double-check the AI’s hallucinations before they go to a client and it’s only sensible that we give that honour to the legal sector.

Over in the finance sector, AI use has doubled, a third of workers rely on it regularly, and about 70% believe it puts their job at risk. Even though 68% of companies have policies explaining how AI should be used, it very much still feels like training hasn’t caught up and the pace of change is far outstripping companies that are still trying to pick between language models or a public sector that’s trying to find a way to regulate the beast.

If you’ve seen signs your company is struggling with this shift, or if you’ve found something that actually works, please share it. We’re all trying to stay one step ahead without burning out in the process. So if you’re waiting for your employer to guide you through the AI era, good luck. No one taught us how to use the internet (we hope), and this feels like the same thing.

3. Can I get your LinkedIn?

Last month, we wrapped up our second Sydney AusCorp Run and our inaugural Melbourne run, and managed to keep both events professional and free of the seediness and cringe you’d expect at other run clubs. Sydney turned it on with Decathlon sponsoring the morning with free caps and hydralytes, and our friends at Piccolo Me fuelling everyone with free coffee.

It turns out the secret to keeping things professional isn’t complicated; when the opening line is “Where do you work?” everyone stays on their best behaviour. It also helps to know that any unacceptable behaviour could be career suicide if you get ousted on the front page of The Aussie Corporate Instagram.

Our next event is shaping up nicely with GYG partnering with us for free breakfast burritos, coffee and merch in Sydney on 16th December and Melbourne on 18th December. Even though we’re all out of free brekky burritos (they were all gone in the first 2 hours), you’re still more than welcome to join the run. And if a GYG burrito feels like a bit much at 7AM on a Tuesday, we hear there may be some charcoal chicken making an appearance early next year.

🏉 Sports Catalogue

Game 1 of The Ashes started and finished in such rapid time that everything was done and dusted inside two days. Travis Head, batting as a makeshift opener, smashed an 83-ball century (a truly hectic "Travball" performance) to chase down the small Day 2 target in a blur. While England are now 1-0 down, the 2-day affair is also a blow for Australian Cricket, who will lose gate (and beer) sales from the remaining days. We head to Brisbane next, where Day 4 resale tickets are suddenly very cheap.

Meanwhile, Australian F1 star Oscar Piastri secured a dominant victory in the Qatar Sprint race to remain in contention in the most thrilling title race in years. However, his second place to Max Verstappen in the main race has put him a clear third favourite behind teammate Lando Norris and Max. Heading into the final F1 race of the season in Abu Dhabi this December, Lando Norris leads the Drivers' Championship with 408 points, followed closely by Max Verstappen (396 points), and our own Piastri (392 points).

Finally in sport, the Australian team lost the SailGP Grand Final to Great Britain (one back for English supporters), which gave the British boat a staggering $4.4 million in prize money in the coveted race. Australia came in second in the winner-takes-all race while the Kiwis rounded out the podium.

📊 AMP’s Finest

Expect house prices to keep rising in 2026 - just not with the same energy we saw this year. The momentum is still there though, the delayed impact of rate cuts, the expanded 5% deposit scheme, Help to Buy finally landing, slightly improved consumer confidence and the ongoing shortage of actual homes to live in. All of that keeps the market supported. But the pace is likely to slow as the RBA appears to be sitting at the bottom of the rate cycle, APRA is moving to rein in riskier lending and affordability has never been worse.

From February, banks will be limited to having no more than 20% of new loans going to borrowers with debt-to-income ratios above six. Since investors typically sit higher on that scale, they will feel it more than owner-occupiers, but a few first home buyers may be caught by it too. 

Even though price-to-income ratios are also at record highs, buyers continue to stretch themselves with the help of governments and the Bank of Mum and Dad. Population growth is also moderating with Visa restrictions and a return to normal student departure patterns taking annual growth from its peak of 662,000 to 423,000.

Put all of that together and the 2026 housing market looks like it may still have just a bit of juice left. After roughly 8.5% national growth this year, price gains are expected to ease to around 5-7% next year. Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide are likely to stay strongest in the near term, driven by FOMO. Still, the ceiling is real, just higher than anyone expected.

If that was helpful at all, you can listen to the AMP Econosights podcast here, featuring Shane Oliver, Diana Mousina and My Bui.

 🗞️ On Your Minds

🇦🇺 TOP AUSTRALIAN NEWS RECAP

1. Australians have reached a median superannuation balance of $172,000 while the gender income gap continues across every age group. How does your income compare? LINK

2. Job seekers are being misled by "ghost jobs" as employers increasingly list roles never meant to be filled, fuelling application fatigue. LINK

3. Two Australian teenagers launched a High Court challenge to the new social media law that sets a minimum age of 16, claiming it breaches constitutional rights. LINK

4. 6 banned skincare products remain on Australian shelves as lack of federal regulation persists despite bans on microbeads in several states. LINK

5. Bank of America sued over not paying workers for PC boot up time in proposed class action lawsuit.  LINK 

🌏 THE ODD PICKS

1. Apple’s latest innovation isn’t a new chip, camera or feature, it’s a US$230 sock for your phone. LINK

2. A man decided to turn his wedding suit into a walking billboard selling 26 sponsorships, which covered the suit cost and netted him an extra $2,000. LINK

3. Dictionary.com has officially crowned “6-7” (pronounced ‘six seven’), a viral meme that has taken over the internet, as the 2025 Word of the Year, beating out actual words. LINK

4. Do you sleep in a "high stress" position? LINK

5. Human attention spans have dropped from 2 minutes 30 seconds in 1994 to 47 seconds in 2024 as tech overload fuels a mental state called 'popcorn brain'. LINK

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