BOLD’s Dr. Jasmine Escalera joins the show to discuss a major demographic shift in the U.S. workforce: it’s getting older. Using Bureau of Labor Statistics data, Dr. Escalera explains why more people are working past traditional retirement ages, what this means for employers and younger workers, and practical steps organizations can take to retain and transition institutional knowledge. Topics include financial pressures keeping people employed, the value of soft skills and mentorship, reskilling older workers in an AI era, and opportunities for Gen Z in trade roles as retirements create openings.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Dr. Escalera, it’s great to see you. Thanks for joining us in the program this morning.
Jasmine Escalera, PhD., BOLD
So excited to be here.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Well, I’m excited and I love the fact that you looked at all the Bureau of Labor Statistics data or you and the team, I should say, because it’s always it takes a village to do this type of work.
Jasmine Escalera, PhD., BOLD
Absolutely.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
You know, based on your research and looking at these BLS numbers, there seems to be a significant demographic shift in America’s workforce.
Jasmine Escalera, PhD., BOLD
Absolutely. One hundred percent. What we’re seeing is that the workforce is getting significantly older.
And in fact, one in four employees is over the age of 55, which has increased in the last ten years. What we’re noticing is that the workforce is getting older and it’s bringing up this question of, but why?
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah. So, so, I mean, I know the birth rate is down, I guess, over over the last few decades. But in your estimation, what does this all translate to?
Why are we kind of shifting to an older workforce? And then what are the implications for employers that are looking to hire people who may be in this age range?
Jasmine Escalera, PhD., BOLD
Yeah, the why is really interesting here. And I think there are some great factors, right? We are living till we are older.
So a lot of individuals are saying, well, if I’m in good health and I can get out there and stay in the workforce, then I want to keep myself busy. I want to keep myself active. And that’s absolutely wonderful.
But we also want to look at the flip side of that. We also know that because of inflation, because of cost of living, retirement and savings are things that individuals are having complications and really being able to add to. So we also want to think about this from the standpoint of people might be staying in the workforce because they want to, but also people might be staying in the workforce because they have to.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, I mean, I think we’re all feeling it. Gas prices have gone up significantly. The cost of goods, groceries gone up.
That puts a lot of financial pressure on everyone, but especially those on fixed incomes. You know, in terms of, you know, looking at, you know, benefits, are there things that that employers maybe should be thinking about if they’re looking to attract this demographic or, quite frankly, other demographics to their to their company, to their organization?
Jasmine Escalera, PhD., BOLD
Great question. If you’re an employer, what you really want to think about is you definitely want to make it comfortable, exciting and fun for your older workers to stay in the workforce should they choose to. One of the things you want to consider is the fact that your older workers have an immense amount of knowledge and experience.
So the great thing that employers can be thinking about is if we do have individuals who want to stay put, who don’t necessarily want to transition into retirement, how can we use that institutional knowledge and overall knowledge to support younger workers by thinking about building mentorship programs, for example, or allowing for the older workers to not just mentor, but to support, to sponsor younger employees so that you keep that institutional knowledge moving and you make it a really fun and exciting experience and also a way for the different generations to work together in your company?
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, I want to follow up on that because let’s talk about succession planning. And look, contrary to popular belief, I was young. I was a young worker one time.
And, you know, when you’re trying to move up in an organization, whether it’s a flatter organization or a very layered organization, you always look above and see who’s ahead of you. If people are sticking around longer, you know, I would imagine you want to not discourage. You don’t want your younger workforce who you were training, you don’t want them to kind of walk out the door and go to, especially a competitor.
Jasmine Escalera, PhD., BOLD
Absolutely. And it’s something to really be thinking about is how do we pave the way for younger workers while still maintaining our older workers in the workforce should they want to stay? And I believe that those ways of providing mentorship, new ways of collaboration, especially in the age of AI, can be very helpful.
What we want for our older workers to be able to pass down is not just the institutional knowledge and the technical skills, but even those soft skills as well. They’re great at that, being able to have those relationships, build those relationships with key stakeholders. Those are even things that they can transfer over to the younger generation as well.
So it doesn’t just have to be about the technical work, but it can also be about developing them in new ways.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
So are those qualitative skills that you were talking about that I would say negotiation, partnership, are those very popular skills so that like if I’m a older worker, mature worker, as we say, looking to find a new employer, those are things that maybe I could put into my resume, I guess, to maybe attract opportunity?
Jasmine Escalera, PhD., BOLD
Absolutely. And now in the day of AI and AI being more implemented in the workforce, AI is really being implemented for things that are repetitive tasks and automated tasks. When we think about older workers in the older population of employees, these are individuals that have built relationships.
They have an extensive amount of soft skills that they can actually utilize. And so yes, I would agree 100% that they should be leaning into that.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Can you teach an old dog new tricks? So can we reskill? And I mean that tongue in cheek, of course.
I don’t consider myself an old dog. But can we reskill people? Maybe they were manufacturing, now they need to go into technology, or maybe they’re in, you know, some other vocation, and they’ve been there for 20-25 years.
Do those skills have marketability and transferability to retool, retrain them?
Jasmine Escalera, PhD., BOLD
Absolutely, 100%. I don’t know that you can teach my old dog new tricks, but you definitely can. And that’s something that employers and companies should be thinking about, thinking outside of the box, especially as we start implementing things like AI in the workforce.
How can we be training individuals in new ways so that they can use those skill sets differently? When we think about the older population of employees, millennials, Gen X boomers, these individuals are having to think about how do I repackage what I already know? Whereas Gen Z coming in has to think about, okay, what careers should I be going into that are actually going to exist in the next 10 years?
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, do you think that that’s, you know, it’s been a while since I’ve graduated college, but I know people who have children that are just coming out, they just graduated, I guess in May, now they’re entering the workforce. They maybe signed up for a major, went through the studies, but all of a sudden, maybe that business, as you were talking about, that vocation may be going away, or maybe AI is kind of gobbling it up. And it probably is denying those people opportunity because you gain skills over time by kind of refining your skills, taking on new opportunities, new projects.
Jasmine Escalera, PhD., BOLD
Yeah, absolutely. So the younger workforce is definitely thinking about things, they have to think about things very differently in terms of longevity within their career. And what we’ve been able to find in other studies that we’ve done is that Gen Z has an immense amount of AI anxiety.
And they’re actually thinking about it from the standpoint of, is a college degree even worth it anymore? And should I actually be going into things more like trade jobs and trade opportunities? What our data from this study found was that a lot of those trade roles are the positions that are going to be coming up as available when people start to retire.
So if Gen Z can look forward and say, hey, maybe these opportunities are ones that I should be looking into, they might actually find that a lot of slots will start coming up.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, and you know, I think people in the trades typically a little bit more labor intensive, at least initially tend to retire 55, 65, I guess. And there’s also like a pecking order, for lack of a better term of their seniority. So you’re right, people probably can come in, you know, as an apprentice, work their way up and eventually get those more, more senior roles.
Let’s talk about future research. You know, I don’t want to get ahead of you. But, you know, are there things that you’re looking at?
I mean, you get you must have mountains of data that you’re sifting through based on the platform. Are there other research projects that you’re looking at? Maybe that we can you can maybe tease out?
Jasmine Escalera, PhD., BOLD
Yeah, we’re super excited to look deeper into what retirement really looks like. And to be asking individuals, is retirement even something that’s possible for you? That’s something that’s coming down the pipeline for us.
Because we notice that individuals are staying in the workforce longer. But that question around, do they have to is really the one that we’re very interested in.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, I think you’re gonna be pretty busy. Because I think, you know, for every person, they’re going to have their own opinion. And, you know, they’re, it’s going to be different than than someone else, they’re going to have different financial issues, they’re going to have different family issues, they may be a caregiver, they may be, you know, needing long term care services.
That’s probably going to be pretty interesting. Dr. Escalera, we’re going to have to leave it there. Great to see a great research.
And we look forward to having you back on the program again very soon.
Jasmine Escalera, PhD., BOLD
Thank you so much for the opportunity.
