Myth: “You don’t want to hire anyone in their 50’s because they’re going to retire soon. Get ‘em young.”
Fact: Median employee tenure was generally higher among older workers than younger ones. For example, the median tenure of workers ages 55 to 64 (10.1 years) was more than three times that of workers ages 25 to 34 years (2.8 years). Also, a larger proportion of older workers than younger workers had 10 years or more of tenure. Among workers ages 60 to 64, 55 percent were employed for at least 10 years with their current employer in January 2016, compared with only 13 percent of those ages 30 to 34.
-U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
The idea of working at a company your whole life is largely a concept of the past. We hear predictions that current college students will be on their fifth or sixth job and different employer by age 30.
So if employers want some consistency. A strong undercurrent to counter turbulent turnover over the surface, older workers are a solution.
And then there are the common sense benefits older workers bring to the effort. Experience, mentoring and a higher gratitude for the job (and a need to keep it!) are huge assets to have in a company’s dynamic mix.
For the budding boomer job seeker, there also has to be preparation and acceptance of the fact those employment opportunities may be radically different than positions you’ve held in the past as well as compensation and workplace dynamics.