EmploymentDigest.net

American work force going gray at an exponential pace

Posted on 19. Apr, 2005 by Bill in Employment News

American work force going gray at an exponential pace

Russ Creason, 84, goes to work every day because he loves it and can’t imagine not working.

Ken Moberg, 61, retired after 30 years at one company - and then created a thriving business from a sidelight interest. Donald Long, 78, and Evelyn Merchant, 67, are desperately hunting for jobs so they can pay their bills, which have mounted since they lost work.

For reasons both self-fulfilling and financial, older workers are a fast-growing presence in the labor force.

Last year, there were more people 55 and older in the work force than at any time since the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics began publishing that kind of data in 1948. Last year also marked the highest labor force participation rate - 36 percent - of 55-and-older workers since 1972. And that’s just the beginning of what is expected to be an older-worker onslaught that will reshape the face of working America. The bureau projects that between 2002 and 2012, the annual growth rate of the 55-and-older group will be 4.1 percent - or four times the rate for the overall labor force. By 2012, nearly one in five American workers will be 55 or older. ”The statistics don’t tell us if the older workers are being forced back or not retiring because of economics, because of health-care costs or because they want to work,” said Sylvia Allegretto, with the Economic Policy Institute. ”But the growth in their labor force participation rate stands out among all age cohorts.” Good health and longer life expectancies play the biggest roles in extended work lives. But some retirees have returned to work because low interest rates slashed interest income from their certificates of deposit or their retirement savings plans collapsed. Economists note that most Americans have done a poor job of saving for retirement. Some studies show the typical household savings rate is about 1 percent of income. Thus, many retirees are finding they can’t maintain their lifestyles on Social Security alone,
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especially if they are saddled with high costs for prescription medicines and health-care services. AARP reported that 68 percent of workers between the ages of 50 and 70 plan to work in retirement or never retire. But Ken Dychtwald, a gerontologist and founder of Age Wave, a think tank and consulting group focused on the aging population, said older workers are working more because they want to than because they have to. He noted that the ”longevity bonus” gives retirees an opportunity to remake their work lives after ”retiring.” He also predicted that as members of the 77 million-strong baby boom generation - those born between 1946 and 1964 - enter retirement, there were likely to be fewer escapes to lives of leisure. ”The boomer dream is to continue working, but without as much stress,” Dychtwald said. ”The average retiree last year watched television 43 hours a week. Boomers say they will need more stimulation.” Cost cutting by businesses since the 2001 recession caught many older workers in layoffs that fed a widespread impression of age discrimination. Whether older workers were cut because they earned higher salaries, their skills were outdated or they were outright victims of discrimination is being addressed in many lawsuits. But older workers’ dismissals haven’t reversed their desire - or need - to be in the work force.

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Tags: Employment News