Should focus change from retirement to making work “age-friendly?”

Writing in the Globe and Mail, columnist Linda Nazareth asks if the days of “looking forward to gold watches, pensions, and rounds of golf” are gone – to be replaced by efforts to make work more “age-friendly.”

“Whether it is to keep themselves active or to make up for the inflation-eroded value of their portfolios, many are not looking to retire early, or perhaps at all,” she continues.

She says the workforce – even after the current post-pandemic job vacancy crisis is over – will likely continue to age, so there are “legitimate reasons to keep (older) employees earning – for their financial well-being, but also because many industries will continue to need their contributions.”

She notes that in the U.S., a study carried out for the National Bureau of Economic Research created an “age-friendly job index” that covered 873 jobs “in terms of their attractiveness to older workers.”

“Examining each job for a host of characteristics including flexibility, telecommuting, physical job demands, pace of work, autonomy at work and paid time off, the NBER study came to the conclusion that over the past three decades, work in general has indeed become more age-friendly,” she writes.

“That varied a bit by industry, with jobs in the finance and retail industries being the most age-friendly and including occupations such as insurance adjusters, financial managers and proofreaders. The least age-friendly jobs tended to be in manufacturing, agricultural and construction and involve a physical component of work.”

Researchers found that while the number of jobs for older workers are rising, it’s not only older workers filling “age-friendly” jobs – “instead… the jobs were disproportionately filled by women and college graduates,” she notes.

Older workers tend to be working in the jobs they had throughout their career (which researchers suggest have become age-friendly jobs), but some continue to work in “old-economy sectors such as manufacturing, and in conditions that in general are physically demanding.”

And that’s the interesting conclusion – there are lots of jobs out there being created that are ideal for older workers – less physical demands, more flexibility for working from home, etc. However, “there are reasons to believe that older workers are not necessarily getting access to those jobs,” she writes.

“If that is happening because they are actually less productive, then that should be addressed in some way by investments in retraining and reskilling whether by employers, government or the workers themselves. If, however, they actually are as productive as younger workers but are simply being shut out of them by ageism, that needs to be remedied,” Nazareth writes.

It’s an interesting sort of chicken-egg argument – should older workers look for “age-suitable” jobs, or should employers tweak existing job descriptions and duties to be more “age-suitable?” Other factors, of course, are the health of the job-seeking senior, and whether or not they need additional employment income to cover living expenses after reaching retirement age. Can they work, and do they need the money?

For those of us who do want to retire, a key condition that needs to be met is having sufficient retirement income to make work unnecessary. If you have a pension or retirement program through work, you’ve got a leg up. If you don’t, consider the Saskatchewan Pension Plan. SPP is like your own, personal defined contribution pension plan. You decide how much to contribute, SPP invests your savings, and at retirement, you have income options to choose from including SPP’s stable of lifetime annuities. Check out SPP today!

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Seniors – many lacking pensions and facing depleted savings – struggle to find work

Many of us of a certain vintage – say boomers in their late 50s and early 60s – plan to work as long as we can before entering retirement.

But a report by the Globe and Mail suggests that these days, as we recover from the pandemic, jobs for older workers aren’t as easy to come by as they may once have been.

“As we survey the damage from the COVID-wrecked economy, we may find that the employment prospects for older workers are getting thin just as the supply of mature job-seekers starts to climb,” writes the Globe’s Linda Nazareth.

First, she explains, things have changed for older workers.

“The old model of work, with the notion of leaving with a gold watch and a pension for life, is over. According to Statistics Canada, 52 per cent of the employed population was covered by a pension plan in 1977, a figure that had fallen to 37 per cent by 2018. Making up the difference with private savings does not always work out, and 2020 has offered a stark reminder that volatile markets, recessions, job losses and illness can wreak havoc on the best-laid plans,” she writes.

So, she notes, without pension income or savings, the other option is to keep working.

“No surprise, then, that the labour force participation rate (the percentage of the population either working or looking for work) of those aged from 55 to 64 has been trending higher for years, climbing from 63.6 per cent in November, 2010, to 66.6 per cent in November of this year,” Nazareth writes.

The rub, unfortunately, is that the kinds of jobs older workers are now holding down may not be there once the “K-shaped recovery” is fully underway, Nazareth explains.

“Many will be caught in the sectors and occupations that find themselves in the downslide of the K, including occupations in the struggling hospitality sector, but also those in a wide swath of manufacturing and services. Automation and a competitive global economy were already taking things in that direction but picking up the pieces after the pandemic will only make things worse and increase the potential for a spate of very-much involuntary unemployment,” she warns.

She concludes the article by hoping that a full economic recovery will lead to new types of jobs to aid the older workers in their job search.

In the U.S., reports Forbes magazine, it’s a similar situation.

The unemployment rate among workers 65 and older was an alarming 10.8 per cent, the article reports. Worse, it’s lower-income workers who are most affected, the article explains.

Writer Christian Weller concludes that there are basically two camps in the U.S. “Some could glide towards a comfortable retirement after working at good wages and saving enough during the preceding years. Others were left to fend for themselves as jobs became scarce and health risks became widespread since they had too little in wealth to weather the multitude of emergencies and start retiring earlier than planned. The pandemic starkly illustrates the massive retirement gulf that epitomizes the U.S.’s aging society.”

So let’s sift through this. Basically both authors are saying that older citizens with a pension or retirement savings to fall back on are doing better than those without, and that finding and keeping a job when you’re older may not be a slam dunk.

What can we do about it if we aren’t older? Saving for retirement seems a good way to cushion your future self against shifts in the job market. If you are fortunate enough to have a pension at work, be sure you are maximizing your contributions to it. If not, you’ll need to be self-reliant, and build your own retirement nest egg. A good place to start the savings journey could be the Saskatchewan Pension Plan, celebrating its 35^th year in 2021. Check them out today!

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A look at the best of the Internet, from an SPP point of view

What if the boomer retirement wave is a trickle, rather than a tidal wave?

We all seem to feel pretty certain that any time now, an unprecedented wave of boomer retirements (some call it the silver tsunami) will wash ashore, overloading the system and causing all kinds of problems.

Financial author and MacDonald-Laurier Institute fellow Linda Nazareth isn’t so sure.

Writing in the Globe and Mail, she likens concerns about this upcoming boomer retirement wave to “almost an urban legend.”

She says many speculate that “shortages of workers will be the bane of every industry,” and “younger workers will finally (finally!!) get to experience what it’s like to be in a seller’s market. After all, every day that huge generation gets older they are collectively getting a day closer to the golf course and out of the office.”

However, there may be a few facts getting in the way of this great story, she writes. A recent study by the OECD, Nazareth notes, suggests “there are factors at play that will keep older workers in the workforce and that will go a long way toward offsetting the impact of population aging in most developed countries, including Canada.”

The OECD research noted, she writes, that many countries, including Canada, have done away with mandatory retirement ages. Getting rid of those old rules – here it used to be retirement by age 65 – led to a “10.9 percentage point increase in the labour force participation rate… of those between 55 and 74 between 2002 and 2019,” she explains.

The OECD, Nazareth explains, chalks up the increase in older workers to “rising life expectancy,” the fact that people are living (and thus working) longer, and “educational attainment,” the idea that better-educated workers can stay on the job longer.

So instead of a “silver tsunami,” Nazareth says the OECD data suggests that the number of older people in the workforce should actually begin to increase “by 3.4 percentage points through 2030 for the median (OECD) country.” Japan will see a startling 11.5 per cent increase in older workers by 2030, at the lower end, Germany will see a fall of 2.5 per cent in the same timeframe.  Canada should see the older worker participation rate dip by 1.7 per cent by 2030.

Nazareth concludes from the OECD data that the long-expected explosion of boomer retirements is being delayed by “longer lifespans… and higher education levels.” Another factor, she explains, is that while older folks may be working longer, they may tend to be doing so “on contracts or in part-time jobs.” Nonetheless, she concludes, “the rush to the golf greens may be a little slower than expected.”

These conclusions sure seem to line up with what those of us of a certain age – let’s say 60 – are seeing. Those of us with good workplace pensions are leaving or planning to leave the workplace, those without intend to keep working. Many are working or consulting into their 70s.

One great way to ease the transition from working to not working is to augment any workplace pension you may receive with personal savings. A great place to park your hard-earned retirement dollars is the Saskatchewan Pension Plan, which offers professional, low-cost investing, an enviable track record of growth, and best of all, many options at retirement to turn your savings into lifetime income. Be sure to click on over to check them out!

Written by Martin Biefer
	Martin Biefer is Senior Pension Writer at Avery & Kerr Communications in Nepean, Ontario. A veteran reporter, editor and pension communicator, he’s now a freelancer. Interests include golf, line dancing, classic rock, and darts. You can follow him on Twitter – his handle is @AveryKerr22