AI Is Pushing Older Employees Straight Out of the Workforce, New Report Finds

Key Points:

• Recent research from Boston College indicates that AI, particularly since the release of ChatGPT in 2022, is accelerating workforce exits among older, white-collar workers aged 55 and above, especially in AI-exposed professions like coding and tax preparation.
• Before ChatGPT, older workers in highly skilled, AI-exposed jobs tended to work longer compared to those in manual labor, but this advantage has diminished significantly, with increased unemployment among this group.
• The increase in workforce exits among older professionals is not primarily due to early retirement but rather a rise in unemployment and forced job transitions out of AI-exposed white-collar roles.
• Manual labor jobs have seen only a modest increase in retirement-age exits, contrasting sharply with the substantial rises in exits among programmers (over 25%) and accountants/auditors (22%) between 2014 and 2025.
• This trend raises concerns about labor market dynamics, as both entry-level hiring slows and older professionals leave in large numbers, creating challenges for mid-career workers navigating a squeezed job market.