Boomers poised to change pace of retirement - New Mexico Business Weekly:

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Now, the 70-year-old spends almost as much time teaching the younb workers who will replacs him aboutthe profession. “Iu probably should have been a McDowell said. McDowell — like many oldere Americans — is critical to the economy, as 78 milliomn baby boomers hitretirement age. The future shortage of workersd is about more than there is a serious lack of the skilled workers required to keep thestate — and nationm — competitive. California will need 1 millionb more college graduates to meet the demandsw of the changing economyby 2025, according to a recent report.
Only 35 percent of the state’s working-agse adults will have a bachelor’s degree by shy of the 41 percent A more diverse labor force with different skillws is expected to replace theoften well-educated baby boomers. “Americw can’t compete without us. We are the bridge to the saidCarleen MacKay, 70, an authoe and former career management executive. She now works 60 hourd a week as a work force polic adviser forin Sacramento. “Retirement is a word for another time. Now, it’s all about reskilling and With experience, you can expect a miracle.” The bridg e to the future will have to be aflexible one.
Nobody knows when the massive wave of retireezwill hit. The first baby boomers reached 62 in but the generation that rewrotd the rules abouthuman rights, embracesd entrepreneurship and touted a work ethicd of long hours is poised to change the pace of too. Boomers think “old” meanes somebody else. Many like working and have no intention to quit in theforeseeabls future. Others will continue working because theidr retirement assets tanked inthe recession, leaving no choice. Two-thirde of the oldest boomers are financially unprepared for andmany aren’t even aware of theier predicament, according to a McKinsey Global Institut study.
“I’m really concerned we’ll have some kind of crisisz in eight to10 years, when people figur out they are not making it said financial adviser Roger Smith, president of in Sacramento. The percentagwe of Californians working at or near retirement age has increaseds significantly sincethe mid-1990s. In 2008, 63 percent of residentw age 55 to 64were working, an 8.2 percent increase from 1995, according to the California Budgeg Project.
The prospect of a multigenerational work force raises a host of issues for employere who must comply with laws that protect olderf workers and keep the peace betweem skilled seniors who like to talk througb problems and a generation of youngsters who grew up with text the Internet andcell “We are not a cookie-cutter society,” said Jessica Hawthorne, employment law counselo for , a workplace compliance prograjm run by CalChamber, the state chamber of “The best thing employers can do for employeesz is to recognize their skills and use them to theirr advantage.
” If baby boomers continue to retirse at their current rate, there will be a scramble to find well-trained younger workers. Nowhere is the problemn more apparent than with the stateof California, where 51 perceny of its more than 233,0090 employees will be eligible to retire by 2019 (see this page). The figure includes 1,774 executives and 22,273 By contrast, 37 percent of the Sacramento-area laborr force will be eligibles to retire in thenext decade. But questionsz abound.