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That said, I think after 60 the large majority of people become pretty much useless dead weight in the corporate world. I think there's a huge drop off between 53 and 63 for most people.
I agree with that and I notice it myself. I'm retiring in 324 days at age 55. I have been pretty successful professionally but, for the last 25 years, have been working at a high intensity with a lot of pressure. Each year management would congratulate us all, hand out the bonuses and then ask for more. When I think back at how it used to be .... not so long ago ... no cell phone, no blackberry, no email ..... the pace was a lot easier. Now, every year it gets harder just to stand still.
I don't mind admitting that I no longer have the energy, the drive or the passion for it any more. However, having been prudent and financially responsible for all those years, I can retire at 55 and have a pretty nice life. I don't need to hang about work for another 10 years.
The baby boomers as a whole seem to refuse to retire, or at least anytime soon. I wonder whether what effect this will have on the unemployment rate. From my experience with boomers, there seems to be a few reasons why they are avoiding retirement.
1.) Retiring means you're "old" and boomers want to believe they are forever young.
2.) Many have not saved enough for retirement and the crappy equity markets over the last decade (if you bought and hold over the last 10 years you would have not gained much) have made their projections rather inaccurate. As a result they must continue to work.
3.) Many seem to think that their lifestyle during retirement was going to be the same as when they were 50 something, on two incomes and had all the kids out of the house.
4.) Many kept moving up in the housing market as a result they still owe a significant mortgage on their home. The collapse in the real estate market in many cases seems to have eaten awhile a good deal of their equity. They can longer sell their McMansion and purchase a smaller home cash. Many don't seem interested in purchasing a small home in the first place...(i.e, don't want to reduce their standard of living).
Anyhow, so if they continue to avoid retirement will it cause an elevated unemployment rate for some time? Will it make it more difficult for the younger generations to get employed?
We were the boomers (husband) who fought in Vietnam. Came home and went to college. Worked part time ($2.50 and hour) midnights in a chemical company. College full time. Me working full time. His B.S. degree got him out of the chemical lab and into sales. Started planning for future way back then. Raised two sons, went back and got his masters.That took 6 years because we moved and he had to start over. This is along with beign in the Navy Reserves for 27 years and retiring as a Captain
Now helping out with the grandchildren. We are very comfortable now. Do not have a McMansion, but a nice home.
We are in our early 60's My husband is not the type to sit back and "retire". He can work circles around some of our young neighbors. They are just "so overwelmed with work and kids ya know".
He wanted to do something after he "retired" from his regular job, in about three years. He inquired into the local university about teaching a business class at that time. Well, they just called and asked him to start next week. I guess my point is why him and not someone in the "younger generation"? Why in the world would a well known university ask a 62 year old man to come teach, when there are so many young people out there looking for employment?
When I was an HR consultant a few years ago there was all this talk about a "coming demographic crisis" that was emerging because such a large percentage of the management talent and intellectual capital would be retiring at the same time. So if that really is/was true then I think many boomers delaying retirement is probably an okay thing for the workforce.
All that said, the baby boomer generation has been ridiculously lucky in terms of investments. Housing returns that are 4-5x inflation. Equity markets that have performed better than average since the 70s. Low inflation during most of the time. Dot com booms. Standard of living booms. I really don't feel bad for any boomer that can't retire because they don't have enough money. The fact of the matter is that generation will almost certainly get WAY better luck with housing and equity returns than either Gen X or Gen Y (housing and stocks are generally the two asset classes most consumers retire on).
If people in their 50s lost 40-50% of the value on their 401k and are underwater on their house that's really terrible financial management on their part. People in their 50s should not be 100% equities and should not have a large mortgage on their house if they intend to retire in a 5-10 year time frame. I think many boomers were extremely ill prepared to deal with a recession in terms of their investment/life situation and have paid the price. Perhaps that's because most of them never really dealt with a recession. Perhaps many boomers are just bad at financial management. Keeping risk under control at a later age is pretty important and a lot of people are learning this the hard way.
So Gen X and Y are better prepared to deal with a recession?? LOL...that is really funny. Read the "unemployment" forum threads and see all of the young ones on there who can't find jobs as well as all ages. BTW it's not the Boomers' fault regarding anything to do with the economy; take a long, hard look at your politicians for that.
[quote=Jude1948;10207929]We were the boomers (husband) who fought in Vietnam. Came home and went to college. Worked part time ($2.50 and hour) midnights in a chemical company. College full time. Me working full time. His B.S. degree got him out of the chemical lab and into sales. Started planning for future way back then. Raised two sons, went back and got his masters.That took 6 years because we moved and he had to start over. This is along with beign in the Navy Reserves for 27 years and retiring as a Captain
Now helping out with the grandchildren. We are very comfortable now. Do not have a McMansion, but a nice home.
We are in our early 60's My husband is not the type to sit back and "retire". He can work circles around some of our young neighbors. They are just "so overwelmed with work and kids ya know".
He wanted to do something after he "retired" from his regular job, in about three years. He inquired into the local university about teaching a business class at that time. Well, they just called and asked him to start next week. I guess my point is why him and not someone in the "younger generation"? Why in the world would a well known university ask a 62 year old man to come teach, when there are so many young people out there looking for employment?[/QUOTE]
People have to look at it form the kids side too (not sure if being 30 is a kid though) that job jumping is the new normal. When my parents were growing up it was expected that the employer would take care of the employee, and the reverse. Now both are doing everything possible in order to get the best for themselves.
In the last 4 years I have gotten 1 raise, there was always a freeze or problem going on otherwise...and it was 2% (less then inflation). To get any sort of raise I've had to job jump. Promotions are a joke, I've known 2 people get an internal promotion to any sort of management in the same period. One had been in the company for 14 years to get it, the other received it they had a cap on the raise with promotion so when it happened he just got a 8% raise (the jobs pay scale was a 30% raise).
Sorry to say but boomer bosses have upped the ante by forcing that kind of thinking, by forcing employees to become mercenaries instead of working towards a common goal. Many are now holding on longer and longer because of investment downturns putting even more of a squeeze on upward mobility and on the bottom line of companies (longer tenure more pay). There is certainly a degree of entitlement for younger workers, but some is the fact that the carrot of striving for the next challenge is being sat on by some one who made bad investment choices.
About 4-years ago while working for the State they hired a young guy as a temp. He was about 22 years old. This guy was very personable and everybody liked him "when" he was on the job. I say "when" since even though he did a good job he was consistently late (not 5-10 minutes but sometimes 2 hours); he would never call and say he was on his way. He would miss entire days with no call-in. Since he was a temp they let him get away with it since he wasn't paid when he wasn't there. It did create a hardship though for the woman he was supposed to be assisting.
On the other hand, there was a 66-year old woman who had been there for quite some time. This lady had the energy of a 30-year old. Her work ethics and her work production were fantastic! She was always on time; rarely missed work and knew everything there was to know about her job and the agency.
Last edited by Alaskapat528; 08-10-2009 at 02:57 PM..
Reason: add
So saying that most of the boomers refuse to retire is rather harsh since none of them has yet reached what is considered "standard" retirement age for ss and many pensions.
The wording was a bit bad, what I mean is that the ones somewhat close to retirement do not seem very interested in retiring. That is they don't seem to be planning to retire when they are 62 or 65. Both my parents retired from their public jobs a few years ago and receive pensions, yet they still continue to work almost full time else where. The issue seems to be that they don't want to give up certain things and they think they are forever young. Its sort of funny..
I just turned 60 at the end of June and I have no plans or desire to retire anytime soon. As long as I'm doiing work that is enjoyable I plan to keep working until my foot hits that ole proverbial bucket. The concept of retirement ( unless a person is disabled ) seems like an utter waste of human energy to me. Granted, I'd like to cut back on hours worked and do something more enjoyable and rewarding than sitting in front of a computer all day, but I'm not ready for a rocking chair, perpetual travelling, mall walking, shuffleboard, or other retirment sterotypes. I'd just as soon skip all that crap, and keep making a contribution to society in some way and continue to reap the fruits of my labor.
I remember the great Alabama footbal coach, Bear Bryant. He was fond of saying that he'd probably be dead within a year if they ever forced hime to retire. Sure enough his prophecy came true. I imagine the same thing would happen to Joe Pa at Penn State if they ever force him into retirement.
hindsight2020 wrote:
I can attribute my underemployment directly to the boomers' unwillingness to retire.
Of course you can do that. It's always easier to BLAME someone else for your problems than it is to take effective action to alleviate your problems. However, the problem with that strategy is that it won't make your problems go away!
Randomdude wrote:
In my company, every single person in any management position is over 40, and about 3/4's of them are over 60, and a few are past social security age.
Without fail, they all are maintaining expensive lifestyles which force them to clog up the pipes forever.
In my company, I'm 60 and my boss is 35 and we are both able to have a sincere good chuckle about that. He knows he's getting great experience at a cheap price, and I know he's not going to bust my butt and/or stand over my shoulder. It's win - win for both of us. BTW this is a common situation in my company.
I would venture a guess that my monthly expenses are no more, or perhaps even less than yours. My 11 year old car ( which I drive just 80 miles a week ) has been paid off for many years. My mortgage is less than it would cost to rent a home half as nice as the home ( under 2000 sf) I live in. If I so desired, I could quit my job tomorrow and get by very nicely on part time jobs every now and then. But I have no intention of doing that.
PS: I totally agree that the Paying your dues concept is outdated and useless. It's about as useful as of hazing.
Last edited by CosmicWizard; 08-10-2009 at 04:46 PM..
People are working longer and longer, not by choice, but by need. Did it occur to you that boomers (not all of retirement age) have no choice but to keep working? You have some really strange and incorrect perceptions of boomers.
Some don't have a choice because they did not correctly plan for retirement. Some have a choice, but do not like the idea of reducing their standard of living.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alaskapat528
[/" Yes it will but only for those who don't know what work ethics are and have no idea of how to dress and act in the workplace. Would you say those are accurate perceptions of the younger generation?
"Work ethic", "how to dress", etc are very generational. The younger generations certainly have different ideas about these things, but the question is do the differences result in worse performance from the company's point of view? I don't think so.
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