After spending years adapting to new technologies, some older workers are choosing to retire early rather than learn how to use artificial intelligence during their final years on the job, according to a report.
The number of Americans aged 55 or older in the workforce has been declining in recent years, hitting a record low of 37.2 percent in March, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
While it’s impossible to know exactly how many older Americans have left the workforce as a result of AI, many people retire when key elements of their work lives are disrupted, Robert Laura, the co-founder of the Retirement Coaches Association, told The Wall Street Journal.
“Maybe their autonomy is being challenged or changed, their friends are leaving the workplace, or they disagree with the company’s directions,” Laura said. “When two or three of these things show up, that’s when people start to opt out.”
“AI is a big one,” Laura added. “It disrupts their autonomy, their professionalism.”
Several workers around the retirement age told the Journal their company’s implementation of AI pushed them to retire earlier than they expected.
“The time and energy you have to devote to learning a whole new vocabulary and a whole new skill set, it wasn’t worth it,” said Luke Michel, a 68-year-old content strategist. Michel opted to retire when his employer, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, made an early retirement offer to some staff last year.
While Michel had previously adapted to new technologies in his field, including desktop publishing in the 1980s and the introduction of the Internet, he didn’t feel up to the challenge this time around.
“Your battery doesn’t hold a charge as long as it used to,” he said.
Jennifer Kerns’ reservations about AI also contributed to her departure last month from her job as a program manager at GitHub, where users can create, store and share software code.
The 60-year-old was upset when GitHub, which is owned by Microsoft, began expecting employees to incorporate AI into their work.
Kerns said her colleagues would suggest she use ChatGPT to write reports and reviews.
“I’d be like, ‘I have no idea how to use that’ and I have no interest in using AI to write anything for me,” she said.
Terry Grimm told the Journal that he retired from his senior software consultant role last May when he was 65 due to AI implementation — even though he initially thought he would stay in the workforce longer.
Grimm, who worked in IT for 40 years, said his firm was acquired by a bigger firm, and employees were expected to incorporate the parent company’s AI and other tools into their work.
“I just got to the point where I was spending 40 hours at work and then 20 hours training and studying,” Grimm said. “I’m like, I’ll let the younger guys do this.”
The apparent trend follows a sharp drop in the employment of older Americans during the COVID pandemic, which saw the number of people older than 55 participating in the workforce go from 40.3 percent to 38.5 during just the first five months of 2020.
The number of older employed Americans has jumped between 38 and 39 percent in the years since, before reaching record lows this March, according to Bureau of Labor data.
The retirement age in America also continues to increase. As of 2026, the full retirement age for Social Security has reached 67 for those born in 1960 or later.
Research shows that older Americans are less likely than younger people to use AI.
A Pew Research Center survey of over 5,000 adults found that 38 percent of employed adults ages 18 to 29 have used ChatGPT on the job, compared to only 18 percent of those 50 or older.
Meanwhile, an American Association of Retired Persons survey from last September also found that while most older adults have some knowledge about AI, their familiarity with it decreases with age.
The survey, which included 1,661 American adults, found that 47 percent of respondents in their 50s knew about and use AI, while only 25 percent of those over the age of 70 do.
Many older Americans expressed their concerns about AI in the survey, with 68 percent saying they worry AI may reduce human interactions.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents also believe AI is rapidly advancing while ethical policies struggle to keep pace, according to the survey.
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