Labor shortages are expected to hit businesses especially hard from 2020-2025 according to demographers at the University of Minnesota.

• With immigration down, retirement up – and not enough millennials to fill all those openings for qualified workers – employers are suddenly more interested in retaining workers 55+, especially in healthcare and manufacturing.
• Hiring managers are starting to talk about extending the work “life cycle” to help skilled older workers stay on the job longer and to convince experienced retirees to return to work.
• Boomers rank high on loyalty, professionalism and producing quality work but younger workers rank higher on creativity and openness to change.
• Listen up Boomers! We have to alter the perception of ourselves as being rigid and not as creative or as “with it” as our younger counterparts. We have to prove to ourselves that an old dog can learn new tricks.
• One tip: Nothing makes us look as old and out of touch as consistently talking about the past. Don’t talk about things that happened more than 3 years ago – that’s ancient history, it’s irrelevant.  (And thank you Faye Landes for giving me this helpful bit of advice years ago!)

Read on below for more workforce trends including job polarization.

 

Job Polarization: Why prime-age men (25-54 year olds) are dropping out of the workforce

 

 

• The participation rate of prime-age men is down to 89% from 97% (after WWII)
• According to a study by the Kansas City Fed, the jobs that are disappearing are mid-skilled ones, which have been the first to be automated.
• The two areas that are growing: low-skilled, service-oriented jobs and high-skilled managerial and analytical jobs.
• These jobs, at both ends of the spectrum, are more difficult to replace with machines or computers.
• Prime-age men who had mid-skill jobs do not have the education or skills for the managerial/analytical jobs and do not want to go down the pay scale and take a low-level service job (working at McDonald’s, for instance).

 

Liberal millennials are the most afraid of tech taking their jobs

 

 

• 51% of Americans see AI, robotics, and automation as a vastly bigger threat to the nation’s jobs than immigration or outsourcing.
• 61% of under-35’s are most concerned about new technology taking their jobs, and least concerned about outsourcing and immigration
• 67% of Democrats (of all ages/education levels) believe tech is to be feared.

 

BOTTOM LINE:  For those of us over 50, work as we’ve known it, is history. People stay at jobs for much shorter periods of time and things are changing so fast that companies are fearful of adding too many permanent workers. They’d rather go with contract workers or freelancers.

Nobody – not workers, not businesses – knows exactly what tomorrow holds. Which is why we all have to maintain what I call a “freelance mindset.” No matter who you work for, you must see yourself as your own company – skills sharp, connected, aware. If anyone googles you, is all your info up-to-date? An hour a week dedicated to keeping YOU highly desirable in the workplace of today and tomorrow.