Senior Employment

We are getting older and working longer, but that does not mean finding new employment options has gotten easier. A study found that employers regularly overlook the resumes of middle-aged and older workers, reinforcing the long time trend of age discrimination in hiring.

The number of seniors aged 65 and older within the working-age population is projected to increase from 19% to 29% by 2060, but middle-aged and older workers continue to have challenges in finding new employment opportunities. In many cases, this is because the managers and human resources staff reviewing these applications have stereotypes about older workers.

Numerous Studies have debunked these stereotypes, but even with the unemployment rate near 3% in many areas of the county, age discrimination persists among many employers. Common assumptions about older workers are that they are less creative, less productive, more likely to be burned out, resistant to new technology, absent more due to illness, and resist having a younger supervisor. However, these perceptions do not hold up.

Increasingly though, forward-thinking employers are creating new ways to encourage their staff to continue working past the normal retirement age or to come back to work when new projects emerge, or production needs quickly accelerate. Visit Four Ways to Adapt to an Aging Workforce to learn more.

A 2015 AARP study evaluates the business case for the recruitment, retention, and engagement of these workers. The findings reveal that the business case for workers age 50+ has strengthened since the original report was published in 2005 and confirms that 50+ workers are a critical component of a high-performance business in today’s economy and job markets.