Beset by threadbare retirement accounts and encouraged by a longer life, more older people are delaying retirement or launching into new jobs, with projections showing the graying workforce dramatically increasing in the next five to 10 years.
In Colorado, 95,913 people older than 65 will be working in 2010. Just five years later, that number is expected to jump to almost 150,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Economists and labor experts say the larger number of older employees will change not only the look of the workplace. Older workers may also shift the pace and feel of the typical workweek, demanding flexibility to work part-time hours and from home.
“You’d think the 40-hour workweek was handed down by Moses on a tablet. . . . I think we’re heading for a lot of change. We have old systems not working for this new generation,” said Karen Newman, a professor of management at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business, who plans to work into older age.
“We baby boomers have always managed to get everything we wanted because we’re so big. I think we’ll see the workplace adapting to us.”
Advocates for senior citizens say the reason behind an aging workplace — and the spike of those older than 65 holding jobs — is two-pronged.
The recession and the stock market’s plunge have battered 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts. Many, such as Newman, will have to work longer to make up what they lost. Others, who retired a few years ago, are re-entering the workforce to try to regain a little financial footing.
Deborah Russell, director of workplace aging at AARP, said workers also choose to stay in jobs to feel productive and youthful.
“We’ve seen the retired executive in Arizona who is bored to tears,” Russell said. “Golfing and all that is great, but it’s not mentally challenging. It’s not mentally gratifying, like, ‘What am I doing that is useful?’ ”
Lisa Travis spends most days in a basement office helping people in her generation — she turned 80 earlier this year — find a job.
She has always worked, at a record company on Long Island, as a security manager with The Anschutz Co., and as office support staff at a gym.
Now she’s at the AARP’s Senior Community Service Employment Program, where 140 people are on a waiting list for her services.
“I tell them to pick yourself up. The hardest thing for them to do is to get up in the morning and get out,” she said. “I love working. When I stop working, that will be the end of me.”
Jobs get scarce
Travis’ days have gotten more difficult as jobs have evaporated.
When Mary Lou Pobojeski’s husband died in 2004, the 68-year-old found she couldn’t pay the bills on one Social Security income.
She and her husband owned a restaurant until 1995, when they retired in Aurora.
“I found myself falling deeper and deeper into debt, and I couldn’t find any work,” said Pobojeski, who uses a wheelchair-like scooter. “I’m able to function fine, but a lot of employers give you a blank look with the scooter.”
There are recent holes in her resume because of health problems. Pobojeski was working at the Denver Housing Authority as a receptionist but had to quit after a debilitating spell of Bell’s palsy, which paralyzed the right side of her face.
She then went to work as a caretaker, but that job ended. Now she’s out looking again.
“I think Wal-Mart got tired of me applying after a while. I can’t even get into the website anymore,” Pobojeski said.
Transition plans
One Denver Fortune 500 company is already preparing for the change.
A few years ago at CH2M Hill, company leaders noticed that fewer employees wanted to leave the company completely as they reached retirement age. It now has a “transitional retirement” plan, that allows for intermittent or part-time assignments.
“We see it as extremely valuable for our younger workers,” said John Corsi, company spokesman. “We have all of that brain talent already here.”
Allison Sherry: 303-954-1377 or asherry@denverpost.com
