Monday, February 16, 2009

Staying in the workforce



By Angelo Orlando



Here’s a sign of the times: Enrollment at the American Bartending School in New York City has shot up, and some of its new students are in their 50s, from retired social workers and laid-off investment bankers to fashion designers looking for extra income. More than ever, thanks to the ongoing economic downturn, planning for and living through retirement requires a second job or new career, even if that means learning how to mix a grasshopper.Older Americans actually have excellent long-term employment prospects, and since we could all use some good news, let’s look at that fact first. As boomers retire, millions of jobs are going vacant every year—more than younger workers can fill and more than companies can downsize out of existence—and many are being taken by boomers who don’t retire. Experts disagree about just how severe a labor shortage the country faces in the coming years, but these demographic facts are already keeping or pulling back a record number of older Americans into the work force. The labor force participation rate of workers aged 65 and older, after dropping for decades, began rising in the mid-1990s. The percentage of seniors working full-time started increasing around the same time and continues to climb. And from 2006 to 2016, the federal government projects that while the number of workers age 16 to 24 will drop, those age 55 to 64 will jump by more than a third—and those 65 and older will rocket more than 83 percent. As a July 2008 report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts it, “The graying of the American work force is only just beginning.”

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