Labor crunch

As the Baby Boom generation begins to retire, leaving some industries with a labor crunch, northern Nevada senior activists encourage companies and government officials to begin developing strategies to keep graying workers on the job.

Among their ideas: Eliminating the Social Security tax on the earnings of workers over 65, a step that would give them more take-home income while providing a strong financial incentive to employers to hire graying workers.

(Employers pay 7.63 percent of their payroll in Social Security taxes.) Another idea kicked around by about a dozen folks in a workshop during the Nevada Conference on Aging is the possibility of redesigning benefits programs to reflect the needs of both older and younger workers.

That might mean, participants said, that cafeteria-style benefits programs would allow older workers to have larger pharmaceuticals benefits instead of the child-care benefits desired by younger workers.

Employers also should be thinking more about the creation of part-time jobs as a way of holding onto soon-to-retire workers, the group said.Another alternative would be greater use of consulting-like arrangements in which older workers are hired only to handle a specific project.

Either way, participants in the conference on aging said, employers should be thinking anew about the benefits they provide to parttime workers.

For many older workers, benefits such as medical or pharmaceutical programs are likely to be a big incentive to keep working.

To keep older workers' skills sharp, either the public or private sectors should think about scholarships and grants to provide refresher courses, conference participants said.

Other training may be necessary, conference goers said, to help managers overcome outdated attitudes about the performance of older workers.

The issue of a graying workforce reflects a simple demographic reality: The 78 million members of the Baby Boom are nearing their Golden Years, and the oldest of them next year will be celebrating their 60th birthdays.

In a couple of industries in Nevada mining and the construction trades worries about the anticipated wave of retirements in the past couple of years already are fueling efforts to retain older workers and recruit more youngsters.

A study last year by the Employee Benefit Research Institute found, however, that about 40 percent of workers between 50 and 65 years old are interested in a gradual, phased retirement rather than stopping work all of a sudden.