Dori Cohen, 25, recently lost his job as a software tester at a high-tech company. Three months earlier, his father, Avraham, who served as an administrative operations manager at another high-tech firm, was also laid off. Their mornings now look identical: Sending out resumes. But that is where the similarity ends. Dori enrolled in several courses hoping to remain relevant, and he sounds optimistic. Avraham, who is approaching 60, tells a different story: "They paid me NIS 30,000 a month for my high operational capabilities and experience. They replaced me with a junior who earns a third, works with artificial intelligence, and does excellent work. I understand why I was laid off, and I understand another thing: There is no demand for my skillset."
Avraham's case is far from an isolated story. The penetration of artificial intelligence challenges young workers as well, but for veteran employees, adaptation is usually far more complex: They are not only required to learn a new tool, but to adopt work patterns, skills, and work habits that are updating at an extremely rapid pace. For Generation Y and Generation Z, who grew up with smartphones and social networks, the new tools are a natural continuation of their lifestyle, and quickly became a routine and taken-for-granted part of their workday.
The 2025 labor market report published several weeks ago outlines a very problematic picture regarding the integration of older adults into the Israeli labor market. The forecast for 2030 estimates a rate of approximately 12% unemployment among those aged 50 and over.
Artificial intelligence does not only replace jobs; it is rapidly changing the skill set in every profession. Workers aged 40 to 60 who do not undergo updating training are left with skills that do not match the demands of the new market. Studies in Israel and around the world show that a worker laid off after age 50 is vulnerable to prolonged unemployment and a final exit from the workforce. As months pass without work, placement chances plunge sharply, employers prefer younger and cheaper workers, and temporary unemployment becomes forced retirement.
Illusory savings: The failure of the government system
An examination reveals that the state does indeed offer several training tracks, most of them at an introductory level. On Campus IL, the platform of the National Digital Directorate, free introductory courses in artificial intelligence are available in Hebrew through online self-study. The Labor Ministry operates more focused tracks, including an "AI Systems Integrator" course that trains individuals to integrate technology into organizations, and the Employment Service occasionally runs variable training programs in cooperation with the high-tech industry.
"On paper, it sounds like a serious response, but the numbers reveal an opposite picture," says economist Ram Ben Avi, an expert in public policy for senior citizens. "Israel invests only 0.07% of GDP in vocational training, compared to an average of 0.11% in OECD countries."
However, this savings is illusory: What the state does not pay for training, it pays heavily for elsewhere. According to him, "An older unemployed worker costs the state between NIS 80,000 and NIS 100,000 a year in unemployment benefits alone, even before income support, accompanying allowances, and lost tax revenue. Tens of thousands of older adults outside the labor market accumulate over a decade into tens of billions of shekels. And compared to that? One meaningful training course for an older worker costs NIS 15,000 to NIS 20,000. Training 50,000 older adults would cost about NIS 1 billion, once. Official studies on Labor Ministry programs found that in most training tracks, an increase of 6% or more in income was recorded over time. In other words, the state knows that the investment pays for itself, and chooses not to invest."
Why do older workers not easily enter state-subsidized training? First of all, because the system was not built around them: Eligibility for training vouchers is largely defined around job-seeker status, not around age, so a 58-year-old worker who sees the ground slipping away will reach a track only after being laid off. Even then, training days are counted within the unemployment period, so full training could extend beyond the safety net. But the deeper failure is in the definition of the product itself. Government training is built for career change, turning a person into a practitioner of a new trade: A welder, an electrician, a bookkeeper.
"A worker like Avraham does not need a career change, but an update of his existing profession: To continue managing operations, this time through the new tools. However, most of the offerings are not built this way. Most AI courses impart technological skills without a defined employment horizon, while vocational training leads to a job, but usually in a different profession. Tracks that connect the two, updating skills within the existing field of occupation, are still few relative to the need, and the older worker is the first to fall into this gap," Ben Avi adds.
Expensive alternatives in the private market
Alongside these operates an entire private market: Colleges, digital schools, and independent instructors. An AI course has become a shelf product intended for all layers of the labor market, from students to managers, and the private market prices it in two tiers. In the cheaper tier, basic courses for beginners, mostly recorded self-study tutorials or single Zoom sessions, cost a few hundred shekels up to NIS 1,500. In the second tier, deep programs with personal mentoring, practical projects, and specialization in high-demand niches feature prices climbing from NIS 2,500 for an online course up to NIS 15,000 to NIS 20,000 for a comprehensive track.
What the world understands that Israel misses
And how are other countries handling the challenge? In Singapore, every citizen who passes the age of 40 receives a training credit of 4,000 Singapore dollars that does not expire, the state subsidizes up to 90% of tuition, and anyone who takes leave for mid-career studies receives a living allowance of half their salary for up to two years. This year, a new benefit was added: Six months of free access to paid AI tools for anyone enrolling in a course in the field. Britain offers 16-week data and artificial intelligence training for free, with a guaranteed job interview at the end. And the European Union has already anchored this in law: Since 2025, an organization that operates AI systems is required to train its employees to work with them.
The state comptroller, the Bank of Israel, and the Israel Democracy Institute have marked training for older adults as a critical tool for increasing employment and improving productivity. "Many view the issue of core studies as the most significant threat to Israeli education and economy in the coming decades, a threat that will weaken productivity and social cohesion. But this is also a problem that is expected to explode in our faces with no less force," Ben Avi concludes.