Commentary: Hopes for Working Retired Not Panning Out?

Beverly Goldberg, vice president and director of publications at The Century Foundation and the author of Age Works: What Corporate America Must Do to Survive the Graying of the Workforce, believes that "the magic bullet of working retired that would allow those workers who have not saved enough for retirement or whose pensions have disappeared in the collapse of the Enrons and bankruptcies of airlines seems to be a dud." Despite the interest shown by human resource managers, the growth in the number of those working retired has not met expectations.

Goldberg says that buy-outs of older workers still abound and the costs of health care for older workers make employers resistent to finding ways to hold on to them. In addition, "many jobs have changed so much that the skills of most older workers are irrelevant, and training is seldom offered to older workers." Companies are also "opting to invest more in machinery and automation to reduce the need for older workers." One result is that many employees are just hanging on to their current jobs as long as they can.

Source: "Working Retired: An Idea Whose Time May Never Come" The Century Foundation (April 19, 2006)