Trade schools are seeing younger, more crowded enrollment, and the data explains why. ADP Research's 2026 Today at Work report found that only 22% of workers aged 27 to 39 who use AI multiple times a week believe their job is safe from elimination, despite this group otherwise reporting the highest confidence in their own skills of any age bracket surveyed. That specific combination, heavy AI use paired with low job security, is showing up directly in who is walking into trade school classrooms.
The number driving the shift
ADP Research surveyed more than 39,000 workers across 36 countries for its 2026 report and found that globally, only 22% of workers strongly agree their job is safe from being eliminated. In the United States specifically, that figure rises to 28%, still meaning fewer than one in three American workers feels genuinely secure.
The more striking detail sits inside the age and usage breakdown. Workers aged 27 to 39 who use AI multiple times a week, the demographic most directly exposed to the tools reshaping their own jobs, land at that same 22% confidence figure. This is despite this same age group reporting the highest skills confidence of any bracket ADP measured, meaning the anxiety isn't about capability, it's specifically about whether the role itself will still exist.
What that anxiety looks like in a classroom
Reporting on trade schools this year has picked up on a real, on-the-ground version of that data. At Apex Technical School in New York, staff describe a student body getting noticeably younger, with more students enrolling straight out of high school rather than after a stalled attempt at a four-year degree or a corporate career.
Students there aren't shy about naming the reason. One recent electrical student put it plainly, saying he was learning more in three weeks than he had in three years of college. Another described the calculation in blunt terms: a trade means a job for life and real money, without gambling years and tuition on a degree that AI might make irrelevant before it pays off.
Why electricians specifically
Electrical work has become the clearest example of where this instinct and the actual labor data line up. Employment for electricians is projected to grow 9% from 2024 to 2034, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, well ahead of the average for all occupations. A meaningful share of that growth is tied directly to AI data center construction, which needs enormous amounts of precision electrical work to build, a dynamic covered in more detail in our reporting on the broader skilled trades shortage and the corporate push into trades training.
One student summarized the logic students are landing on themselves: everything runs on electricity, and that isn't changing regardless of what happens to any individual office job.
The mismatch worth noticing
There's an odd inversion in ADP's data that's worth sitting with. Knowledge workers, the group whose jobs are generally most exposed to AI-driven automation, reported some of the highest job security confidence in the entire survey. Meanwhile, field-based trades work, which separate automation-risk research consistently measures as far safer, hasn't historically carried that same sense of security in the public imagination.
The enrollment data suggests that gap is closing. People are increasingly making decisions based on where the actual risk sits rather than where the cultural assumption used to sit, and trade schools are the clearest place that shift is showing up in real numbers rather than survey sentiment.
Is this a rational move, or just fear
Both, and that's not a criticism. The underlying data supports the instinct: real projected job growth, a documented multi-year labor shortage, and a category of work automation-risk research consistently ranks as low risk. Anxiety pointed at an accurate target isn't irrational, it's information. For anyone weighing the decision, our guides on how to become an apprentice and trade school versus apprenticeship cover the practical next steps in more detail than a single data point ever could.
- What percentage of workers feel secure in their jobs because of AI?
- According to ADP Research's 2026 Today at Work report, only 22% of workers globally strongly agree their job is safe from elimination. Among 27 to 39 year olds who use AI multiple times a week specifically, that figure is also 22%, despite this group otherwise reporting the highest confidence in their own skills of any age bracket surveyed.
- Is trade school enrollment actually increasing?
- Reporting from trade schools including New York's Apex Technical School describes younger student bodies and more high school graduates enrolling directly, with instructors and students citing AI-driven job security concerns as a factor. This lines up with broader labor data showing a persistent and growing skilled trades shortage.
- Why do skilled trades workers feel more secure than office workers?
- ADP's data found that knowledge workers, despite being among the most exposed to AI displacement, reported some of the highest job security confidence, a mismatch between actual risk and perceived risk. Field-based trades work has consistently measured lower automation risk in separate research, which may be catching up to public perception as trade school enrollment grows.
- Is switching to a trade a rational response to AI anxiety?
- The underlying data supports it as a reasonable move, not just an emotional reaction. Electrician employment is projected to grow 9% from 2024 to 2034 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, well above the average for all occupations, and demand tied to AI data center construction is adding further pressure to an already tight labor market.