Older workers fill growing role in workforce

People 55 and older comprise a valuable and quickly growing portion of Idaho’s workforce, state labor officials reported during National Employ Older Workers Week Sept. 23-29.

But construction field superintendent Harold Jordan, 61, and nurse Vera Fink, 75, weren’t thinking about any of that last week.

They were too busy working.
“I enjoy what I do and my health is good,” Jordan said. “As long as I enjoy what I’m doing, I will work ’til the day I can’t.”
Fink, who in January came out of the retirement she started in 1998, said, “I had time I could give, there was a shortage of nurses, and I felt I could make a contribution.”
She’s a community resource nurse at Call St. Luke’s, which provides nurse consultations by phone.
Nearly 16 percent of Idaho workers are 55 or older, up from just below 14 percent four years ago and 10 percent in 1990, the Idaho Department of Labor stated. The number of Idaho workers in the age group has been growing at twice the rate seen in the work force overall in the past decade, officials said.
At Jordan’s employer, Meridian-based commercial general contractor Petra Inc., 15 to 20 percent of the 90-person workforce is 55 or older, President Jerry Frank said.
“I find that the older workforce has a deeper well of wisdom to draw from, and they sometimes make a better employee,” Frank said.
Older workers tend to be attentive and diligent, and often don’t need to spend as much time training as their younger colleagues, he said. The employer might have to pay a premium for its portion of health care coverage, but employers get a premium employee.
Frank said construction office and management staff include older workers as well as young people who recently completed a college construction-management program.
On the construction sites, it’s getting harder to find someone 40 or younger who has completed a multi-year apprenticeship, Jordan said.
“The electricians still do this, so you do see some of the younger people there,” he said.
As for the nursing workforce, it is getting older, which is not to say the staff is not getting young people, Fink said. Some older bedside nurses reduce their hours to deal with the unchanging physical demands of the job, she said.
Some older workers stay in the workforce, or return to it, because they like to stay involved with people – or because they like the challenge, she said.
It was a natural move for Fink, who got involved in volunteer work after her initial retirement, she said.
More employers recognize older workers are a major asset, Idaho Department of Labor Director Roger Madsen said in a statement. He said more than 115,000 older men and women are making major contributions to Idaho’s economy, and thousands more are adding to the state’s quality of life by doing volunteer work.
As competition for qualified workers intensifies, many employers want the experience and knowledge of an older employee, he said.
At the same time, many older workers cannot afford to retire in the face of escalating health care costs, declining pension funds and the cost of caring for grandchildren or aging parents, Madsen said. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that nearly 10,000 people in Idaho have the responsibility of raising their grandchildren, and two-thirds of them are working.
Employers realize they must provide workplace flexibility if they want to keep older workers on the job, Madsen said. Financial disincentives such as Social Security earnings limitations and pension penalties need to be eliminated, he said.
Wells Fargo Bank and the Citicards call center are among major Boise-area employers that offer flexible work schedule options.
“When you have valuable, trained team members, regardless of the age they may be, you want to retain them and not lose them to the competition,” Wells Fargo spokesman Mark Chapman said.
“We offer a wide variety of schedules, and we find that workers, regardless of age, prefer flexibility,” said Jennifer Miller, vice president of human resources for Citicards.
Older workers appreciate Citi’s benefits package, though workers of all ages use it, she said.
Miller said 11.5 percent of Citi’s workforce is 55 or older. “We appreciate diversity in the workforce. It mirrors the diversity in the customer base. We recognize that each generation has very positive and valuable attributes that lend themselves well to the work we do.”
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To contact the author, send e-mail to brad.carlson@idahobusiness.net.