Rewirement vs. retirement

The majority of mid-career and older employees want to embrace AI, but a lack of necessary training is pushing some to call it quits

WE’VE CERTAINTLY HEARD a lot about what AI may or may not be doing to the job market at the entry-level and for those coming out of university looking to start their careers. We have heard much less about what the arrival of generative AI technology means at the other end of the age spectrum: older workers who are witnessing a technological upheaval that many were unprepared for — and are now uninterested in.

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What some are referring to as the Grey Divide is becoming a more pressing dynamic for workers in their 50s and older. “Artificial intelligence isn’t coming for jobs sometime in the future,” wrote Maya Perez. “It’s already here, and workers over 50 are scrambling to figure out what that means for them.”

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What is apparent is the impact AI is having on the older part of the workforce isn’t easy to categorize. Reports from various outlets, including the The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian, make it clear this isn’t a stereotypical case of older workers not being able to adapt to new technology. Rather, the case of older workers versus AI reads a lot more like a battle over agency. AI may seem like an inevitability, but for a fiercely independent generation of older workers, the reaction hasn’t been to reject it, to fight it or to avoid it, but to instead adapt to it on their own terms.

For some, admittedly, the way to hold on to their agency has been to embrace an early retirement. “Maybe their autonomy is being challenged or changed, their friends are leaving the workplace or they disagree with the company’s direction,” observed Robert Laura, co-founder of the Retirement Coaches’ Association. “AI is a big one. It disrupts their autonomy, their professionalism.” One 68-year-old content strategist who packed up his career told WSJ that “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.” This is probably the most common reaction and explains why workers over 50 have AI adoption rates that are half that of their younger counterparts.

But it’s not the universal response. Many older workers are keen to adapt to AI tools, even late career. “Older workers aren’t refusing to adapt,” said Perez. “They want to learn. Data shows that 60 per cent of mid-career and older workers express strong interest in AI upskilling. The problem is access, and willingness from the other side of the table.” Half of older workers, per one study, say they aren’t getting any AI training from their employers.

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“We as employers aren’t doing a good enough job saying [to older workers], ‘We value the skills that you already have, so much that we want to invest in you to help you do your job better,’” said Manpower Group’s chief strategist, Becky Frankiewicz.

It appears the AI companies themselves, though, do have a use for older workers, in the (often precarious) world of AI training. A recent article from The Guardian looked at older workers who are finding their skills are in demand — albeit at a much lower pay rate — as AI trainers. “A doctor, for example, might review how an AI model answers medical questions to flag incorrect or unsafe responses and suggest better ones, helping the system learn how to generate more accurate and reliable responses,” the report reads.

But the report also warns that for some, the working conditions used to train AI models “represents another thing entirely: a last refuge in a brutal job market that is harder to stay in, or re-enter, the older they get. For many of them, whether or not they’re training their AI replacements in their professions is beside the point. They need the work now.” Kieran Delamont