Businesses today face serious talent gaps. The share of companies reporting staffing shortages is at an all-time high: 77%. Last fall the United States had 9.5 million unfilled jobs but only 6.5 million unemployed workers. Many open positions demand sophisticated know-how that cannot be supplied by AI or by training new hires.
Every day 10,000 Americans reach the traditional retirement age of 65, which exacerbates the problem. Critical skills, experience, and connections can walk out the door with each retirement. The good news is that many older employees want to keep working; in fact, nearly 60% say they’re receptive to the idea of working during retirement.
It’s time for companies to stop overlooking this large, valuable labor pool. Employers need to shed their misconceptions about older workers and take measures to make the most of their experience, creating phased retirement programs, offering refresher courses, and recruiting through retiree networks, among other strategies. Older employees’ knowledge can be leveraged through coaching roles, on multigenerational teams, and in institutional systems. But companies will have to work to engage their seasoned staffers, offering them flexibility, the right benefits, and opportunities for connection.
Today’s workforce and workplace are in unprecedented flux. Organizations have serious talent gaps to fill, for all sorts of reasons: high employee turnover, low employee engagement, the dramatic shift to remote and hybrid work, the continuing Baby Boomer retirement wave, rapid advances in technology. Many of the most critical positions require sophisticated skills, experience, and social acumen. Those needs can’t all be met simply by hiring and training inexperienced workers or leveraging AI.
Ken Dychtwald is the founder and CEO of Age Wave. A psychologist and gerontologist, he is the author of 19 books on the social, economic, and workforce implications of an aging population.
Robert Morison is a business researcher, writer, speaker, and consultant who serves as the senior adviser at Age Wave. He is a coauthor, with Ken Dychtwald, of What Retirees Want.
