Baby Boomers to the Rescue! An Idea Whose Time Has Come …

In these tough economic times, with headlines screaming about scary unemployment numbers, job losses and company belt-tightening, it’s easy to overlook some interesting trends that actually bode well for more senior job-seekers. Oh, of course it is true that there are still record numbers of unemployed workers on the market, and certainly if you, yourself, are out of work … well, it’s hard to not view things through a negative prism. However, one of the best kept secrets in today’s employment market is this simple fact: in general, there are more and more jobs going unfilled due to a growing shortage of qualified candidates!

One piece of evidence I have that illustrates the validity of this fact is that I receive a daily email from Indeed.com generated by a job agent I have set up there. It sends me any new postings for Recruiter positions in my area. The number of new recruiter jobs being listed every day is higher now than at any time in recent memory – and more and more keep appearing! To me, that means only one thing: there are a large number of open jobs out there, and businesses and staffing agencies alike are having trouble finding qualified candidates to fill those jobs! Why else would there be a need to hire recruiters? It’s not just that hiring managers are being overly picky (which they are) or that decision-makers are moving the hiring process along slower than ever (which they are.) It’s a talent shortage, plain and simple. One of the reasons behind that fact is a trend involving the aging of the Baby Boomer generation.

For many years in the staffing industry, I’ve been hearing a very interesting and often-repeated statistical analysis of the ever widening gap between the growing talent needs of modern businesses, and the shrinking pool of qualified candidates who could fill those jobs. In 2011, the oldest of the Baby Boomers (people born between 1946 and 1964)¹ started turning 65. We are now seeing the beginning of a mass retirement movement unprecedented in American history – a radical demographic shift in the makeup of our work force. By 2015, one in five workers will be age 55 or over. All told, there are about 76 million people in that Boomer generation who will, over the next couple of decades, drop out of the work force. Sure, the current economic downturn is causing many Boomers to delay their retirement … but sooner or later they’ll all reach a point where full-time work is no longer an option. By contrast, there are only about 51 million “Generation X’ers” (people born between 1965 and 1976)¹ who could potentially step into all those jobs that the Boomers are retiring from. That leaves a huge talent deficit: at least 25 million fewer potential workers!!! The next group in line – the so-called “Millennials” or “Generation Y’ers” (people born between 1977 and 1998)¹ – number around 75 million … but they are simply too young and inexperienced to step into the senior leadership roles that the Boomers are vacating.

I recently assumed the role of Director of Talent Solutions at a relatively new company called Patina Solutions. Patina is a Professional Services Firm that is poised to take advantage of this talent deficit with a rather unique approach. Patina deploys a portfolio of talent made up of professionals generally over the age of 50 and with 25 or more years of work experience who have retired from their traditional careers but still desire to make a difference and positively impact their respective industries. They are placed in consulting-contract assignments at client companies in a variety of industries. It’s an idea whose time has come … sending Baby Boomers into companies who need senior level talent for things like interim C-Level executive positions, critical management assessments, knowledge transfer, staff training, and high-level project-based work loads. They are the kinds of positions that younger, less experienced people simply cannot do! Patina is a 3-year-old start-up with four offices – Milwaukee, Chicago, Cleveland and Boston. Their aggressive business plan calls for as many as 25 Patina offices to open in different markets by 2013.

In a way, it’s quite ironic. I’ve already written several articles about how rampant the practice of Age Discrimination is in today’s employment market. [See “Age Discrimination: Secret Conversations Revealed!” or “Age Discrimination: Exposing Inconvenient Truths” or “Are You ‘Overqualified?’ Handling the Age Issue …” for more of my musings on that topic.] However, in light of these new statistical trends and shifting workforce demographics, it’s clear that those same companies who have resisted hiring older workers will be in huge trouble and have critical talent shortages when their own upper managers and executives retire over the next few years. And a company like Patina, which is ahead of the curve in recognizing the tremendous value of the shrinking but still highly employable Boomer workers, will be in the driver’s seat for the decades still ahead of us. It’ll be Baby Boomers to the Rescue!

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¹Addendum:
Many readers have commented to me about the numbers of people in each of the generations quoted in this blog posting. Different sources I’ve seen quote different numbers. Part of the problem is pinning down exactly what years define each group, and there seem to be differing definitions out there for which years constitute Generation X’ers and Y’ers. Using the birth years now shown, I believe the population numbers in this posting are as accurate as possible.

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If you are a professional over the age of 50, with 25 or more years of work experience, and you’d like to be considered for Patina Solution’s Portfolio of Talent, click on the Patina Logo below to register:

                                          
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