How about this for a fascinating statistic? The Center for Labor Market Studies at Northwestern University says senior citizens will make up 75% of the growth in the U.S. labor force within eight years. Here’s an article about it from the Times in Marietta, Ohio.
Many of these older workers will stay in the labor force because they love their work and believe they would get bored without it. Most of them, however, will be working because they can’t afford not to. The article says that more than 9 million adults 55 and older will be living in poverty in 2015, an increase of 41% in just 11 years.
This will mean an increased demand for training for senior citizens, many of whom will have to find a career late in life that is less physically demanding than the one they had when they were younger. And it will mean more employers will focus their hiring, training, and retention efforts on older workers.
When I told my wife Amanda about this, her first response was the effect it will have on the office grapevine, as the prevailing topic for discussion migrates from who’s dating whom to what blood pressure medicine works best. Interesting times.