The head of Australia's largest online employment website says more people will lose their jobs and will have fewer opportunities to find work as businesses increasingly replace labour with technology.

Speaking at the B20 Summit in Sydney on Friday, Seek chief executive Andrew Bassat said jobs would undoubtedly be lost in Australia amid a shift to what big business now calls "automation".

Robots and automation are moving beyond manufacturing.

While machines have already replaced human workers in factories that produce cars and electronics, the use of "automation" and robots is now seeping into other industries.

Earlier this year, the Associated Press in the United States revealed plans to use software to produce robot-written corporate-earnings reports.