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Demographers are predicting the perfect storm, a generation of young immigrants meeting a gigantic geriatric generation, with nothing in between. Over the next three decades, 76 million baby boomers will be walking out the company door, with only 46 million Xers waiting to step in.

By 2025, the size of the elderly population will swell by 80 percent, with a mere 15 percent increase in the number of working-age adults and children.

In 2020 according to the Census Bureau, 1 in 6 Americans will be 65 or older compared to today’s profile of 1 in 8. By 2030 it will be 1 in 5. We’re looking at a significant increase of Hispanic residents, from 30 million today to 53 million in 2020. The median age of Hispanics will be less than 29, compared to almost 38 for the total population. And women will earn 54 percent of university degrees, compared to a 6 percent decline among men getting four-year degrees.
 

These dry numbers are the ingredients of an enormous transformation of the work force, and of our society. The key driver of change is boomers’ impending retirement. They didn’t have enough children to take their place — an average of 1.9 children compared to 3.1 children parented by the previous generation.

 

Economists predict a shortage of 6 million individuals with four-year degrees within the next 10 years.

These impending labor shortages are concealed today by the economic slowdown and temporary spike in unemployment. But I promise you, it’s temporary. The severity of the problem will become more palpable in the near future as the economy recovers and these conflicting trends — increasing retirements and a contracting supply of young educated new employees — become more apparent and urgent.

Here are some suggestions to pre-empt the shortages:

‰Firms must stay connected to their older workers. According to the AARP, 80 percent of baby boomers say they are planning to work at least part-time during retirement. Intel retains electronic and social links with its retirees because these are the individuals who may be the answer to Intel’s future shortages.

‰Get used to working with women in senior positions. They’re becoming more educated than their male counterparts and, if treated well, they’ll stay in the work force. They are the next knowledge solution and haven’t been developed or advanced sufficiently to this point.

‰Start focusing on employee retention as a strategic imperative. It’s easy to take current employees for granted when skilled candidates are banging on the door. But the tables are turning. Target the right employees for recognition, appreciation and rewards, customize career development plans to individual employees, and offer flexible work arrangements that are also family- and elder- friendly.

‰Rethink early retirement programs. While they may be a short-term fix, they often create disincentives to retiree re-employment, and saddle employers with enormous financial liabilities.

‰Get used to a multilingual, multicultural work force. In America, younger employees will be increasingly Hispanic and Asian. American companies will turn progressively to non-U.S. sources of labor to meet their extreme shortages.

‰Work with local high schools, vocational education and community colleges to support and lock in trained graduates through sponsorships, apprenticeships and internships.

‰Create a culture where training and continuous learning are routine and frequent, whether for computer literacy, data-based decision-making, leadership, or appreciation of diversity of all kinds. Think about moving to aging parts of the country — such as Florida, Arizona and Pennsylvania — since these residents might be tempted to return to the work force when you’re desperate.

‰Use technology to solve labor shortages. It’s not just assembly line manufacturing that can be replaced with robotics. The work of the bank teller, auditor, paralegal, or librarian can be increasingly substituted with smart technologies. It will soon be consultants, teachers, and nurses whose shortages can be alleviated with more effective use of artificial intelligence solutions.

It’s easy to get lulled into complacency when labor demand is soft. But the demographic trends are pointing toward a precarious convergence — a flood of boomer retirements, few successors and an influx of new immigrants. The expected result is a work force too small and ill-prepared to keep up with the demands of a knowledge-intense economy, or a bulging generation on social security and Medicare. It’s time to prepare with forward strategies.