Age is a two edged sword ( I am a 56 year old Baby Boomer). If you are coming back to a previous employer like this mentioned in the article, it is commonly easy. However if you are laid off at that time of life and apply elsewhere, age discrimination will commonly rear it's ugly head.
Away from the near retirement crowd, employers are many times highly inflexible with younger workers. Work in a technical field and take a year off for a sabbatical or for a new baby, and you might find it very hard to get that next job.
6
In government, this is called "Double Dipping." Sucks the life out of budgets. This hospital and other businesses need to put forth much greater effort in recruiting, training, and retaining talented, skilled employees. Older people are supposed to retire and leave the labor force so the next generation can find work and become productive members of society. Very sorry some of you feel bored in retirement! Try starting your own business, travel, find a satisfying hobby. You have worked most of your adult life. Now is the time to enjoy the fruits of your labor in retirement.
7
Well said, JsBx. Older employees are supposed to retire so the next generation can find work and keep the economy strong. People who refuse to retire or retire and then immediately return to the work force are taking away opportunities meant for younger people starting a career, a family, living their lives.
3
@Lawrence Imboden. this sounds very agist. Older employees can't retire if they don't have enough money. They need to work.
9
It's difficult to dispute or even find many negatives in the value of institutional knowledge coupled with solid work experience when contemplating the return and rehiring of retirees.
I think Ilana Benet is an extremely fortunate individual when she realized her "over zealous" decision to retire was a misstep so early in her retirement. The fact that she wanted to return to work and the Montefiore Health System wanted her to return is a wonderful win-win scenario.
I wish employers could figure out a way to match the skillset and experience of employees like Ms. Benet with new employees, albeit a mentoring or shadowing experience, so when employees such as Ms. Benet finally decides to hang up their nursing smock once and for all, there would be a seamless transition of the old regime and the new regime.
3
This article just makes me feel hopeless. I'm a middle aged person who was clearly born at the wrong time. Me and so many in my generation never even had the opportunity to get these kinds of jobs - decent jobs, jobs with benefits, jobs that want you back.
I'm not like the people in this article. I will never have the option to retire. Or the option to be re-hired with full benefits. Nest egg? Absurd ! I will work until I die.
Why? Because once again I work in a two-tiered workplace. One tier contains the old guard and friends of management. They get the pensions, the health insurance, the vacation time. And then there is the lower tier that I'm stuck in - the ones relegated to long-term but temporary jobs - the part timers - the ones who are thrown out and recycled by employer after employer. We've got educations, degrees, experience, skills - when do WE get to benefit from the 'tight labor market?'
15
When my former career ran out of gas in my mid-40s - the business shrank & there were way too many people with my skills for fewer & few jobs (no, not coal mining...), I started a successful consulting business in a completely different field.
Today, I'm still working - although with fewer clients - by choice - and my clients have no idea that I'm 68 (I look much younger, a genetic gift...).
But I know I'm luckily that as an educated, white-collar (white) person, living in a large metro area, I was able to do this. Someone with less education, or a more manual job background, or living in a less economically diverse area, would not have been as likely to make that kind of career change in so-called "middle age."
All the people profiled here as "returning retirees" appear to have one or more of those same advantages, while many others are unemployable in their fields after a certain age, or can't risk retiring without access to health benefits.
I don't know the answer - but not every retiree has a real choice to "freelance" or return to work, even if they need to.
9
Since 1980, the focus in America has been on money, not enjoyment. For those who sacrificed pleasure for money, these are golden times; the people in this article are living the good life. For those who chose instead to enjoy life as it came, not so much. These remarks are not meant as criticism about either group. That's just the way the country has changed.
4
Do you have much contact with older folks? It was the fortunate few, even back then, who could focus on enjoyment rather than earning a living wage---often at boring or body-breaking jobs.
2
I loved all my nursing years but with careful planning I retired at age 62. Now I can volunteer, travel, study other topics (but keep up my nursing education). Continuing to work is wonderful but not if you have to do it. And not at the expense of other life enriching activities.
4
Retirement is impossible for most, it seems to me, before 65 unless you have access to health insurance. The cost, deductibles, are just prohibitive, and the Trump administration is making the individual market unpredictable.
11
If you want to work, that's great. But employers using recent retirees to fill their skilled labor gap is shortsighted. If so much of their workforce is approaching 50, why aren't they a) paying what the need to attract younger workers and b) investing those younger workers to retain them.
We shouldn't be touting the parsimony of employers as a virture, when so many younger employees are displaced in this gaming of the employment market.
12
It takes years to become a nurse. I think as employers finally see the writing on the wall, they'll have to raise salaries, and young people will become more interested in the field. In the meantime, someone has to take care of sick people.
5
When workers retire it opens their jobs for younger people. Employers save money because the pay for starting people is not as that of workers with years of seniority. It sounds as if the people in this article retired of their own free will and with sufficient means. If they want to keep busy, there are plenty of places that need volunteers.
3
When I retire, or lose my job, whichever comes first, my job is going to India. Just reality.
5
“The attitude toward employing older workers is changing because of shortages.” Really? Not in IT. I've been working in IT for 20 years. I changed careers when I was 39 because the jobs in my original field, biological research, dried up. Pharmaceutical companies and medical schools and universities started using post-docs and immigrants as research assistants instead of hiring Americans who they'd have to pay more than entry level wages. The same seems to be the case in IT.
I have 20 years of experience. I know how to learn, how to liaise with co-workers, how to keep a process moving to a successful resolution yet no employer that I've interviewed with wants to hire me. Why? I'm almost 60 and experience doesn't come cheap (entry level cheap that is). And when I follow up and ask if there was something different I could have done to get the job the response is nothing.
Employers in IT (and other fields too) are not interested in hiring older workers. They want cheap labor and young people who are willing to burn themselves out. The biggest laugh in all of this is the useless advice out there: use your network, get more training, research the companies. Since I was downsized in 2013 I've seen almost the same jobs advertised every year. There isn't a skilled worker shortage in America. There's a willingness to hire and train shortage in America that can be attributed to employers who don't want to spend any money at all except on CEO salaries.
55
Great so long as the younger people still get their opportunities for advancement. I worked in a place where people stayed forever and created friendships over the years with management, then would get hired back as high paid contractors , while the younger people remained stuck.
12
I think the trend of valuing near-retirement and retirement age individuals with accommodating schedules of 2-3 days a week is a great thing for the workforce as well as society. Retirement age individuals shouldn't be forgotten, but they also may not be willing or able to endure a 40+ hour work week anymore. That is a limiter for everyone, and more flexible arrangements, and specifically those that open doors for that age group are a good thing for everyone.
27
Medical and utility work are regulated with high barrier to entry and cost plus. I am a 63 year old IT person with 2 advanced degrees and many certifications but the most I will see is $25/hr part time no benefits as the influx of (mostly) Asian IT people and automation limit my opportunities. I am shocked at the many talented people I see as cashiers, lot attendants etc as these high paid opportunities are very rare
29
Our family had me pull the retirement chute, it was a welcome
time. My area in teaching elementary school has allowed me to
join in teaching several days a week, without upsetting plans
we have.
1
Ironically this is much harder in the East due to declining child populations. So many teachers are graduating who can't get work so flood the substitute pool and are lucky to get 2 days a week. The teachers work right to the 37.5 years as it allows them to file for 75% retirement. Many teachers in Conn at 62 get 75k pensions and dominate the town golf and tennis tournaments in Fairfield City.
2
"Analysts noticed that almost half of the nursing staff was nearing 50..." The solution to this is to find and help train the next generation of nurses who will be able to work for the next 40 years, not to re-employ nurses over the age of 60 who have already retired and who can expect to work for only a decade or so, part time. I am happy for Ms. Benet, personally, but as a social trend this does not make good sense for society.
14
I'm a nurse. You are both correct and incorrect. They should - and I am sure they are - focused on training the next generation of nurses. Most administrators are savvy enough to know you can't rely on retired, freelancing employees for regular staffing. But one can't underestimate the importance that decades of experience bring to patient care. I am sure Ms. Benet can't work 5 minutes without people interrupting her to answer questions. If I could work two shifts per week in retirement I would probably do my sub-sub-specialty job well into my retirement years - it is too interesting / too much fun to give up. This is one of those rare cases of win-win in the labor market.
22
You sound like someone over the age of 60 has somehow become unable to do their jobs, in fact a nurse with 40 years of experience would be a valuable asset to have on the floor. It’s clear that you don’t understand the medical industry. Why not train nurses of the future, well, because it costs a lot of money to become a nurse, and student loans are in some cases prohibitively expensive, and you may not get that high paying nursing job you were hoping for. All “industries” including health care want to pay their employees next to nothing, this too is a trend.
22
It would be great if the option to return to work was available to more retirees, given that for millions, SS benefits are about 50% below the Federal poverty level. Unfortunately, between automation, offshoring, and ageism,returning to work is not a possibility for the majority of seniors.
10