The Gray Tsunami

The corporate talent drain is real. It’s also self-inflicted.

According to the Census Bureau, 10,000 people in the US are turning 65 every day. Every living boomer currently qualifies for an AARP membership (which is a whole different issue). By 2034, for the first time in history, there will be more people over 65 than under 18.

Why do those stats matter? For a number of reasons. I’m not talking about Social Security.

Chances are you think of 65 as retirement age.

Let’s talk about retirement. Our culture thinks — expects even — that 65 is retirement age. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) prohibits forced retirement based on age, with a couple of notable exceptions. One of those is safety-related, e.g., you can’t be a firefighter into your 70s. The other exception is “high policy-making positions.”

That second one makes no sense. Wouldn’t you want someone with years of experience setting policy? Isn’t that why our political leaders are mostly in their 70s and even 80s? OK — maybe that’s a bad example.

But I digress. Chances are you think of 65 as retirement age. What about those who don’t want to retire? It’s certainly true that many can’t afford to retire or are afraid of outliving what they have saved. The death of pension plans has created a whole new cohort of minimum wage-earning seniors. But plenty of people who can afford to kick back want more than a daily dose of golf, gardening, and grandkids. They want to be challenged and to contribute and to build something.

Gerontologist Paul Irving, writing for the Harvard Business Review, ponders the implications in “When No One Retires.” Irving is chairman of the Milken Institute Center for the Future of Aging and has thought about the challenges of an aging workforce more than most people.

“Companies,” Irving writes, “need to embrace the aging of their working population by moving past ageist stereotypes and creating powerful, intergenerational teams.”

We think of seniors as people who need to be looked after and cared for.

Good luck with that. But he’s right. Workers — executives — in their 50s and beyond have a greater challenge finding a new job than younger people. It takes at least twice as long and more than a few give up after months or years of fruitless searches.

Baby boomers are branded with lots of misconceptions: they lack energy, they lack technical know-how, they lack drive. Can that be true? Of course — it can be true of an employee of any age. But it’s not always true. Not even mostly true.

We think of seniors as people who need to be looked after and cared for. But that’s not the typical senior. People in their 50s are dealing with ageism and are overlooked for younger, less experienced, but cheaper alternatives. In the current crisis, older workers are taking the brunt of job losses and leaving the workforce.

In my work as a career coach my typical client is mid-50s or older. Most have some money saved, but not enough to live on for 30 years — at least not in the way they would like. Most importantly, they have transferable skills and decades of experience that are both valuable and viable.

What they don’t have is youth. They are no longer sought out by business; they are chaff, tossed aside in search of the young and restless, settling into an existence far beneath their value. Economists agree that a shrinking workforce is a barrier to economic growth. Yet here we are.

Many — maybe most — of us have experienced some level of prejudice. Some much more than others. In a contest, ageism might not make the top ten. But we are all getting older, which means that each of us — if we are lucky — will have the opportunity to experience ageism firsthand.

The next time you want to take a pass on that older candidate, look a few years into the future at what could be your future. That doesn’t mean throw your needs to the side. By all means, look at your actual requirements and then take a hard look at your candidates: who really has the experience, the track record, the ability to deliver?

The next time you want to take a pass on that older candidate, look a few years into the future at what could be your future.

For now, I have a broad client base who are motivated, engaged, and have the means to create something of their own. They are tired of being overlooked and undervalued by corporate America. I understand and accept that no one is going to offer me a job again. I’m okay with that. Now that they’ve found an outlet for their talents, so are my clients.