industries

Age of the Unretired

As Canadians put off retirement, we're entering the age of the unretired. This will create huge changes in business and the workplace. Since I had a birthday recently, I’ve been thinking more about retirement. As one kindly birthday message put it, “One step closer to the age of wisdom.”

By Tony Wanless /

With the clock running out on Baby Boomers’ time in the work force, not everyone is ready to call it quits.

As Canadians put off retirement, we’re entering the age of the unretired. This will create huge changes in business and the workplace.

Since I had a birthday recently, I’ve been thinking more about retirement. As one kindly birthday message put it, “One step closer to the age of wisdom.”

But in my case, much of that thinking is tinged with some horror. As you get older, there’s something about a digit clicking over that makes you realize that retirement may be closer than you thought. For people like me who plan to die with their boots on, so to speak, the concept of not working is inconceivable.

So I’m happy to see that “retirement age” is actually getting further away, according to a survey by CARP – the Canadian Association Of Retired Persons. 

 
CARP says the average age at which Canadians now expect to retire has moved up to 68 from the traditional age of 65. It blames this on the recession and the new age of austerity in which we’re living.  
 
I think that might be true for people who were doing physical labour and can’t afford to stop working. But for most, I believe it has more to do with putting their knowledge to work in a useful setting. 
 
These knowledge workers may say they are going to stop working at 68, but I think they’ll keep going into their 70’s, and perhaps longer because they have accumulated a lifetime of smarts that the business world will likely need. Even CARP agrees, and is rebranding itself from an association of retired people to an advocacy association for older Canadians.  
 
Further, I believe that the whole concept of retirement is going through a massive change these days. It uUsed to be you started working at 18 or so, and stopped at 65 when your back gave out. I think that now, people will “retire” regularly, maybe three or four times in their lives, as they move into different areas of working. Maybe they’ll go back to school, or move from business into public service, or vice versa. 
 
The concept of one job for life is long gone. Probably, the concept of retiring from a job has gone with it. It’s a relic from the industrial age. 
 
Instead, welcome to the age of the “unretired” – people with knowledge who want to work as long as they can. 
 
I’ve heard all the arguments against this – Gen-Xers who grumble because they believe all the top jobs are held by Baby Boomers, which to me is just a way of explaining away their own failure. Or the complaints from Gen-Yers who snicker at the Boomers’ inability to grasp the intricacies of technology and new media. Chalk that one up to youth’s usual contempt for anyone who isn’t like them. 
 
But we’re seeing a seismic shift in business and the workplace here and it seems to me – probably because I’m a Boomer – that there is no use fighting it. 
 
Rather than lament it, let’s move on and work with it. If there are a lot of people around with knowledge and they want to employ that knowledge in work then we should let them.
Tony Wanless

Tony Wanless