Source: Financial Post, Alia McMullen

Published: Saturday, January 12, 2008

Skills shortage puts Boomers in demand

The country's ageing workforce is growing so rapidly that workers 55 and older snapped up half of all new jobs created during a blockbuster 2007 for the Canadian employment market.

The Baby Boomer generation has the skills and the experience Canada's growing economy needs, and they aren't about to retire, says Barbara Jaworski, president of the Workplace Institute and author of the book Kaa-Boom: How to Engage the 50-Plus Worker and Beat the Workforce Crisis.

"As people are entering their 50s, they're entering a second adulthood and they have no intention of sitting back in a rocking chair," Ms. Jaworski said of the large and aging Baby Boomer group, born between 1946 and 1964.

The number of workers over the age of 55 reached a record 2.5 million in December, accounting for 15% of all employed persons, Statistics Canada said yesterday.

Despite their minority representation in the workplace, 55-plus workers accounted for a staggering 50% of the nation's employment growth of 370,000 new positions in 2007.

The employment of older workers rose by 7.7% last year, well above the national growth rate of 2.2%.

And while nationally, employment declined by 19,000 positions in December, older workers bucked the trend to post a 17,000 increase. The majority of workers in this category were aged between 55 and 65.

"If they don't continue to work for the same employer, they're looking for new experiences, looking for perhaps other employers, becoming entrepreneurs themselves," Ms. Jaworski said, adding many get very restless when they retire.

But it is not only the Baby Boomers' desire to work that is keeping them in the workplace; the country can't afford for them to retire. Canada's unemployment rate remained at a very low 5.9% in December.

"Employers are really going to be forced to look at older workers as an option for many different reasons," Ms. Jaworski said. "We know that people in their 50s are generally more productive and engaged and those are key issues for employers."

Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Capital Markets, said the rise in 55-plus employment was not only being driven by the population ageing, but by skills shortages that needed to be addressed.