Companies need older workers: here is why

[June 21, 2018]   By Mark Miller

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The demographic trend is no secret: the populations of the United States and other major industrial countries are getting older, and fast. That means workforces are aging too, but employers are doing surprisingly little to prepare to meet the challenges or adapt to employees' needs.

In the United States, the 65-and-over population will nearly double over the next three decades to 88 million by 2050 from 48 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

By 2024, one in four U.S. workers will be 55 or older, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, more than double the rate in 1994 when 55-plus workers accounted for just 12 percent of the workforce.

Many workers will face a financial need to keep working past traditional retirement ages, while others will want to work in order to stay engaged, notes Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and author of "The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50."

“People are getting to their sixties with another 15 years of productive life ahead, and this is turning out to be the most emotionally-rewarding part of life," Rauch said. "They don’t want to just hang it up and just play golf. That model is wrong.”

Office workers take their lunch at a food court in Sydney, Australia May 4, 2018. REUTERS/Edgar Su/File Photo

A survey of human resource professionals by the Society for Human Resource Management in 2016 revealed a short-term mindset along with a lack of urgency among employers in assessing and planning for aging workforce.

Just 35 percent of U.S. companies have analyzed the near-term impact of the departure of older workers and just 17 percent have considered longer-term impactions over the next decade, according to the survey.

Most employers do not have a process for assessing the impact beyond one or two years, and the majority said they do not actively recruit older workers at all.

Alex Alonso, senior vice president of knowledge development at Society for Human Resource Management, thinks employers have sharpened their focus in this area since the survey was conducted.

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