Following up on our earlier article by Tom Lindmark, Can Americans Work Longer? While working longer has many positives on an individual basis, when jobs are scarce, there’s still the problem of more competition for fewer jobs. – Ilene
70% Of The Elderly Aren’t Retiring Because They Can’t Afford To Anymore
Courtesy of Vincent Fernando at Clusterstock/Business Insider
A new survey from Career Builder exposes what will be an increasingly common trend as America ages demographically — older workers are being forced to keep working and postpone retirement for financial reasons.
More than seven-in-ten (72 percent) workers over the age of 60 who said they are putting off their retirement are doing so because they can’t afford to retire financially, according to a new survey by CareerBuilder.
The good news is that many older workers are putting off retirement for positive reasons as well.
About 70% of workers delaying retirement said they are doing so partly because they enjoy their jobs according to CareerBuilder. Hence there are many Americans who are, yes, putting off retirement for financial reasons, but at the same time are pretty happy to do so since they enjoy working.
Such job satisfaction will become necessary for most young Americans, since fully supporting retirees from ~60 years onwards will be simply untenable as an increasing proportion of America becomes old due to demographic change and extended life expectancies. Already, in 2012 about 1 in 3 American workers will be over 50 years old according to The Economist.
Thus the financial crisis may have delivered an unwanted wake-up call. Americans will need to quickly learn how to work longer into their silver years.
Luckily, as the satisfaction rates in the survey above show, this situation might not be as bad as you’d expect. Let’s hope.
Read more on this trend at The Economist >
See Also:
ADP: January Job Losses Were Actually TRIPLE What We Thought, And No, We Won’t Blame The Snowicane
Here’s What Today’s ISM Number Suggests About Job Creation In February
