Survey: Retirement May Be Becoming Thing of the Past

According to a survey conducted by Harris Interactive© on behalf of CareerBuilder and PrimeCB.com, 57% of workers age 60 and over said they would look for a new job after retiring from their current company. The survey, which included more than 800 U.S. workers age 60 and older and more than 3,000 hiring managers and human resources professionals, also found that 11% said they don’t think they’ll ever be able to retire.

From the employer side of the job market, CareerBuilder reports that 43% of employers plan to hire workers age 50 plus this year, while 41% said they hired workers age 50 plus in 2011. Overall, 75% of the employers surveyed would consider an application from an overqualified worker who is 50 plus, with 59% of them saying mature candidates bring a wealth of knowledge to an organization and can mentor others.

“Whether mature workers are motivated by financial concerns or simply enjoy going to work every day, we’re seeing more people move away from the traditional definition of retirement and seek ‘rehirement,’” said Rosemary Haefner, vice president of Human Resources at CareerBuilder. “At the same time, employers are seeing the value these mature workers can bring to an organization, from their intellectual capital to their mentoring and training capabilities. In a highly competitive job market, mature workers can use these skills to their advantage.”

Source: CareerBuilder Press Release (February 16, 2012)

United Kingdom: HSBC Survey Finds Many Older Workers Change Careers

According to press reports, a survey conducted by HSBC shows that 30% of the UK’s 21.3 million over 50s have changed careers in their later working years and that 41% of those aged 60 to 70 have done so. While 21% of those who have changed their career did so as a result of being made redundant, 15% chose to "career shift" for a change of direction, and 11% because they were looking for a career that was less pressurized and demanding.

According to David Wells, Head of Pensions, Savings and Investments at HSBC:

As the requirement for people to work longer becomes more apparent it appears that the over 50s are embracing this head on and pursuing the careers they have always wanted. Many it seems are doing this to fill a shortfall in retirement income, but equally many are looking to embrace new skills and challenges that may now only become possible after careful financial planning during their earlier working life.

Source: The Age and Employment Network "Changing Careers Common among People Aged 50+" (July 30, 2010); HRMagazine.co.uk "Growing numbers of older workers plan upskilling in a bid for a career change" (July 30, 2010)

Research: Second Careers for Older Workers

AARP's Public Policy Institute has published a research report examining the characteristics of workers who change careers in late life, finding, among other things that later-life career change seems to be an important part of the retirement process. According to "Older Workers on the Move: Recareering in Later Life", authored by Richard W. Johnson, Janette Kawachi, and Eric K. Lewis of The Urban Institute, nearly two-thirds of workers who change jobs (and 27% of all older workers) switch occupations.

Called such career changes "recareering," the study reports that workers who change careers typically move into jobs that pay less and offer fewer benefits. However, the new careers tend to offer more flexible work arrangements, less stressful working conditions, and fewer managerial responsibilities. For workers interested in delaying retirement after long careers, such jobs may be just what they are looking for. In addition, the study finds that late-life occupational change is more common among men because women are less likely to continue working if they leave an employer in their fifties.

The research concludes that later-life career change seems to be an important part of the retirement process. Many changers later in life appear to be pushed into new lines of work involuntarily following job layoffs or business closings. Others, however, appear to place a high premium on leaving 9-5 work and moving into more flexible positions, even at less pay. Some older workers may change careers in hopes of finding more meaningful jobs that give added purpose to their lives.

Source: AARP Public Policy Institute Research Report (May 2009)

Commmentary: Growth and Pitfalls of Second Careers

In an interview for The New York Times with Marc Freeman, author of Encore: Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life, Marci Alboher explores with Freeman "the growing phenomenon of encore careers, the obstacles facing older workers, and why it is so hard to come up with language to describe this new period of work and life."

Among other things, Freeman tells how, while society is set up to make retirement happen seamlessly, individuals are often on their own when it comes to launching a significant second career, "even though we desperately need people to move into this direction." Furthermore, he would like to see older workers avoid spending decades in "bridge jobs" with Home Depot and the like and believes that employers "need to recognize, particularly those facing talent shortages, that there is more than one place to look when filling these gaps."

Source: The New York Times "Discovering Second Acts In Sustained Working Lives" (February 11, 2008)

Public Partnerhsip Releases Survey and Teams with IBM To Launch Initiative To Lure Older Workers to Federal Employment

The Partnership for Public Service and IBM have launched an initiative to help match government’s critical hiring needs with the talents of baby boomers looking for encore careers where they can find interesting and challenging work. The initiative--"FedExperience Transitions to Government"--is a response to the hard hit the federal government is taking in the war for talent, as more than one-third of the full-time permanent federal workforce gets ready to retire or leave in the next five years.

As a pilot initiative with the U.S. Department of Treasury, the goal of IBM and the Partnership is to identify, recruit, and hire interested IBM employees and retirees and match them to key federal government jobs.

“FedExperience is a win-win-win,” said Max Stier, Partnership for Public Service president. “Boomers get their second career where they can find meaningful work, our government gets the talent it needs to fill looming shortages and the American people get a government that has the talent to service its people.”

At the same itme, the Partnership released a report that lays out the case for, and barriers to, connecting baby boomers with federal job opportunities. Findings of "A Golden Opportunity: Recruiting Baby Boomers Into Government" include:

• Older, experienced workers are planning to continue working: 71% of workers age 55–59 reported they plan to work for at least six years; 29% for 11 years or more.
• Old workers’ skills align with government’s talent needs.
• Older workers are interested in government service: 53% of older workers surveyed are at least somewhat interested in federal government work.
• Experienced workers who enter government service like it.

Source: Partnership for Public Service News Release (January 17, 2008)