The first of 78 million baby boomers born in the wake of the Second World War will turn 65 in 2011. Some have long since retired, while others plan to hold onto their jobs for the foreseeable future. Many unemployed baby boomers are also looking for work to supplement poorly funded retirement accounts or to continue to contribute to society in a meaningful way.
Robert Baxter will turn 65 in August 2011, but is reluctant to leave a job he loves. "I've been lucky enough to work my way up in business to the point where I am running the show and that is quite rewarding, so I am in no hurry to retire," says Baxter, CEO of Dryden Mutual Insurance Company in Dryden, N.Y. He might consider retiring at some point between the ages of 68 and 70. "My generation is having second thoughts about taking any sort of early retirement," he says. "When my parents retired, they had a defined benefit pension and Social Security and they actually had over 100 percent replacement of their income. That's not going to happen to my generation."
But holding on to a job in your 60s or finding a new one can be difficult. "Workforce participation among older workers is higher than it has ever been and so is unemployment," says Ted Fishman, author of Shock of Gray, a book about the world's aging population. Once unemployed, older workers generally remain out of work longer than their younger counterparts. The average duration of unemployment for those age 55 and older in November 2010 was 45 weeks, 12 weeks longer than it takes the typical younger person to find a job. When Marty Colletti of Austin, Texas, a former account manager for Dell, was laid off in March 2009, it took her nearly two years to find a new job at a comparable level. Colletti, who will turn 65 in May, began a new job at a smaller company as a search engine optimization consultant in December 2010. "I tend to attribute my age to it taking so long to get a job," she says. (more)
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