Since the release of ChatGPT in late 2022, everyone from the C-suite to new grads looking for their first job has been wondering what AI means for the future of work.
Some employees are using it to get tasks done and worry about what AI means for job security. Job seekers are using it for their résumés and outreach messages. Some employers are citing it as a reason they’re laying people off.
But that’s not the only A-word shaping the job market. “Even as artificial intelligence and its uncertain impact grabs headlines, it is another A—aging—that stands to unequivocally reshape the U.S. labor market over the next decade,” a post from Nela Richardson, ADP’s chief economist, and Tim Decker, senior principal data scientist at the ADP Research Institute, said.
Richardson told Business Insider that the US is “rapidly turning into not just a service economy, but a healthcare-driven economy.”
Last year, the rest of the economy, excluding private healthcare, lost jobs. The sector will need to bring in even more talent to care for an aging population and offset healthcare workers’ retirements.
Meanwhile, other industries like construction are facing a retirement cliff: Highly skilled baby boomer workers like plumbers and electricians are leaving the workforce, and there aren’t enough young workers coming in to fill in the gaps.
There’s a lot of uncertainty about how much AI will affect the workplace over time and what will be automated or replaced completely, even in healthcare. There’s more certainty that aging is a structural issue that will continue to affect employers’ needs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said the aging population will mean more demand for long-term care and therapy services.
“AI may be the economy’s future, but aging is its present,” Richardson said.
The boom of home health and personal care aides
Demand for home health and personal care aides is set to boom; BLS estimates employment in this already large occupation will increase by 739,800 between 2024 and 2034, more than any other career. Richardson said we’re pretty far from the futuristic experiences of “The Jetsons.” She said large language models aren’t lifting patients or taking them on a walk.
“Healthcare employment has been growing steadily regardless of the business cycle for decades,” said Joshua Gottlieb, an economist and a professor at the University of Chicago. “That’s just been a very stable trend.”
Nurse practitioners and registered nurses are also expected to see employment rise a lot over the decade, but Susan Grant, chief clinical officer at healthcare-operations platform Symplr, said nursing has faced shortages, high turnover, and challenges with building a talent pipeline, as some professionals retired early during the pandemic and because of faculty shortages.
“There are major cost issues within the healthcare systems, and cost cutting and a major focus on efficiencies in the health systems,” Grant said, adding, “because nursing is such a large part of the healthcare workforce, staffing has been a major focus, and labor costs are very high, and turnover actually contributes to those costs.”
The pay for these healthcare jobs varies. BLS data showed the median annual wage for home health and personal care aides was $34,900 in 2024, short of the national median of $49,500. Meanwhile, the median for registered nurses was $93,600, and for nurse practitioners was $129,210.
Aging is likely to affect demand for unpaid and informal care
Many Americans already help their parents or grandparents with appointments, meals, and other activities — while they hold a job.
Karen Lee-Coss, who is in her 50s, cares for her mother. She takes her on outings and helps her with bathing and skincare.
“I take care of her the way that I would want someone to take care of me,” Lee-Coss said. “I know the state my mother lived in before she got sick, and I always want to maintain that.”
Lee-Coss said caregiving requires different hats, but she has to know when to take those off. “When my children want to have a conversation, I have to know how to take the caregiver hat for my mother off and put the mother hat for my children on,” said Lee-Coss.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics found, using 2023 and 2024 data, that 38 million Americans did some kind of unpaid eldercare.
“My bet is that informal sector is going to grow as people age,” Richardson said. She said we already have a lot of instances of informal work, such as a babysitter coming over. “You’ll probably see more of that informality where people are not really working for employers or institutions, but they’re just working for their neighbors,” she said. “It might be sporadic and occasional, but it’s helping meet a need in their communities.”
Aging is going to affect all kinds of work, such as the construction sector
“There is no part of the labor market that is immune from the aging demographic,” Richardson said.
Take construction. The sector is about a third the size of healthcare and social assistance, but has grown over the years, recovering from the Great Recession and 2020 pandemic losses. It hit a record employment level this past March.
Still, people aging out has consequences for the sector. Home Builders Institute’s president and CEO, Ed Brady, said more older tradespeople are leaving than younger people coming in, deepening the labor shortage issue, but also affecting the productivity, quality, and speed that the older, experienced workers had.
“We’ve got a long runway to overcome and populate the next generation of these skilled laborers,” Brady said.
Based on ADP data, the average age of an HVAC worker has dropped from 41 in June 2020 to 37 in June 2025. “That’s not because a bunch of new people became HVAC workers; it’s because older workers are retiring,” Richardson said. The average ages have also fallen for other skilled trades, including from 44 to 39 for electricians and 40 to 36 for plumbers.
It’s often said that demographics is destiny, and that’s likely to be the story for the job market for years to come. “AI deserves a lot of attention, but aging is the thing that we can see right now,” Richardson said.
