Worker shortages in the future due to older workers, really?

In the past I have written about how there will be a worker shortage due to the pending retirement of baby boomers. Jobs will go begging, and companies will be pleading with older workers to stay on the job.


Do you believe this?

In a recent article in U.S. News and World Report online they make the case for a worker shortage due to the vast number of baby boomers who will be leaving the work force. They recognize that most people won’t be retiring at 65 anymore which makes sense when you consider the current economic crisis.

Their argument is that the number of Americans retiring will be far greater than the number of people looking for work. In other words Americans will be getting older as a whole causing this great gap in the number of jobs and the number of applicants. I don’t know that I believe that because it seems that what they call the labor force participation rate, the number of people looking for work will be less than the number of people retiring from work.

But it seems that a lot of the jobs that are lost today will be permanently gone and when someone retires their position will be eliminated. So I just don’t know about a worker shortage in the future.

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