Who Will Do The Work?
Last Sunday there was a piece in my local paper, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which estimated that there are 500,000 Baby Boomers currently working in Southeastern Wisconsin. The piece was written by Sammis White a professor of urban planning at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee.
It’s major premise is that Boomers must be retained in the workforce for as long as practical, because there really aren’t any ready replacements on the horizon. He mentions a number of excellent reasons for selecting and retaining Boomers as employees such as level of education, experience, work ethic, etc. On the other side he highlights the fact that Boomers really want to do other things such as travel, volunteer, take up a new career. To take advantage of this worker pool employeers have to change their ways to accomicate Boomers.
Something he doesn’t mention is the stress Boomer retirement will put on the US economy through Social Security and Medicaid. The burden of funding these programs will fall on the active workers, our children and grand-children. Boomers who work longer will continue to contribute and not have to withdraw from these programs.
I’m not personally fearful of these consequences because I have always seen that economic vacuums get filled. We may not like or appreciate the way it happens, but it happens. Maybe, its just the unknown we fear.
It was a thoughful article. To read it go to http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=651927
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POSTED IN: Being A Boomer, Jobs, Work
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