Newswise — Baby boomers looking for jobs in
growth fields that welcome older workers
will want to dust off their diplomas rather
than their treadmills, according to a new
report from the Urban Institute.
Most of the fastest-growing occupations that
already employ above-average shares of
workers age 55 and older rely on an educated
workforce, such as personal financial
advisors, veterinarians, social and
community service managers, surveyors,
environmental scientists and geoscientists,
registered nurses, and instructional
coordinators.
The
list also includes postsecondary teachers,
archivists and curators, social workers,
management analysts, pharmacists,
counselors, and business operation
specialists.
The
fastest-growing area friendly to senior
workers is personal and home care aides.
Other categories that depend less on
academic credentials include usherers,
animal trainers, locksmiths, and brokerage
clerks.
Each of the top-ranked fields is expected to
see its workforce grow at least 20 percent
by 2016, double the 10 percent rate forecast
for the national labor force.
The
portion of each occupation’s workforce that
is 55 or older surpasses this population’s
17 percent share of workers nationally.
“Will Employers Want Aging Boomers?” by
Gordon B.T. Mermin, Richard W. Johnson, and
Eric J. Toder, looks at the current demand
for older workers—especially the 77 million
baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964—and
explores how it may change over the next
decade.
The
study examines how changes in the nature of
work, different occupations, the
characteristics of older workers, and
overall labor force growth might affect
future job prospects for older Americans.
The
study, available at
http://www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=411705,
uses data from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, Employment and Training
Administration, and Census Bureau. The
research was funded by the Alfred P. Sloan
Foundation.
Job Prospects for
Older Adults
Jobs are generally less physically demanding
now than they were in 1971 and less likely
to entail difficult working conditions, a
trend that bodes well for older workers.
However, nonphysical demands have increased,
and some of the most popular jobs among
older workers—such as janitors and cleaners,
home health and home care aides, maids and
housekeepers, and laborers—pay low wages and
involve physically demanding tasks.
The
proportion of jobs with high physical
demands declined from 8.0 to 6.6 percent
between 1971 and 2007.
Those with difficult working
conditions—involving outdoor work, high
noise levels, or exposure to
contaminants—fell too, from 39.8 to 29.8
percent.
The
share requiring high cognitive ability
(reasoning, written expression, and
decisionmaking) grew from 26.5 to 36
percent.
The
proportion involving high stress and dealing
with unpleasant people doubled, from 4.4 to
9.2 percent and from 4.1 to 8.2 percent,
respectively.
These trends are likely to continue, the
researchers forecast.
Only 18 percent of all fast-growing jobs
have any physical demands, compared with 52
percent of other occupations.
High cognitive ability is very or extremely
important for 57 percent of workers in
fast-growing occupations, compared with 30
percent for workers in other occupations.
“Many workers approaching traditional
retirement ages say they want to keep
working, but it’s not yet clear how many
will be able to keep their jobs or find new
ones,” says Johnson, a principal research
associate at the Urban Institute.
“Employers seem to value older workers for
their maturity, experience, and work ethic
but worry about out-of-date skills and the
high cost of employing them.”
To
make older workers more appealing to
employers, Mermin, Johnson, and Toder
recommend that Medicare be made the primary
payer for workers with employer-provided
health insurance.
They also suggest addressing legal
uncertainties surrounding formal phased
retirement programs, allowing distribution
of defined-benefit pensions at age 59 1/2
while people are still employed, targeting
government training and employment services
better to older workers, and increasing
employer awareness of the value of older
workers.
Where Do Older Adults
Work Today?
Older workers can be found in broad
occupational groups in similar proportions
as other workers, except they are more
likely to be managers or in sales, while
adults younger than 65 are more likely to
have blue-collar jobs.
A
third (35.8 percent) of workers age 65 or
older are in management and professional
positions, 17.1 percent are in service jobs,
a similar share have blue-collar jobs, 15.3
percent work in sales, 13.9 percent have
office and administrative support jobs, and
0.8 percent work in farming, fishing, or
forestry.
Of
the 5.18 million full- and part-time workers
age 65 and above, 181,559 are retail
salespersons, the occupation that now
employs the most older Americans.
The
other jobs with at least 100,000 older
workers are farmers and ranchers (177,383),
the immediate supervisors and managers of
retail sales workers (164,507), janitors and
building cleaners (146,364), truck drivers
and delivery people (139,902), secretaries
and administrative assistants (139,829),
cashiers (110,508), and bookkeeping,
accounting, and auditing clerks (108,798).
The
Urban Institute, based in Washington, D.C.,
is a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy research
and educational organization that examines
the social, economic, and governance
challenges facing the nation.
