By Ellen Roseman
Personal Finance Columnist
Ann, 67, used to be a teacher. Now she works three days a week in the children’s department of a large bookstore in Toronto.
“It’s getting harder, standing for eight hours on a concrete floor,” she says.
“But this is my passion. I’ve had regular customers for 10 years. I can make a difference getting children excited about reading.”
Since everyone asks her why she’s still working, she has a list of pros and cons.
Reasons to stay: Keeping involved with her specialty, connecting with customers and young fellow employees (who keep her up to date on the technology scene), and qualifying for company-paid health benefits.
Reasons to quit: Sore back and legs, reduced pay as an hourly employee, having to plan her life three weeks in advance to comply with scheduling rules and commuting to work, especially during the long dark winter hours.
She plans to continue as long as she can to supplement her small pension (since she didn’t work in the public school system).
“This is just like teaching, but I’m not grading papers,” she says.
Evelyn and Bill Lamb, 71 and 78, work one day a week at their own business, FoamFX, which helps people design foam packaging. They use a fabricator to make the product, ship it and collect the payment.
“The fabricator sends us the commission that we decide the customer should be charged,” Bill says about his business, which relies on a website that cost him $450 to set up.
“Life’s good. There are only pros to working if you’re of entrepreneurial spirit.”
The Lambs also deliver meals on wheels and spend 10 weeks a year in Central America. They have a higher income than most retirees (close to six figures) from small pensions, careful investments, FoamFX and a frugal mentality earned early in life.
About 22 per cent of retirees have worked after retirement, according to the final report from the special Senate committee on aging in 2008.
There’s even a self-help book, Working After Retirement for Dummies, which helps you tailor your own plan.
Does population aging account for the trend to work longer?
I consulted David Foot, the University of Toronto economics professor who said in a 1984 bestseller, Boom, Bust and Echo, that demographics can explain two-thirds of everything.
Now a professor emeritus, Foot says that 90 per cent of people who can afford to retire will do so as soon as they can get their pensions. The average age in Canada is 62.
But he sees a trend to part-time work after retirement – and he wishes more employers would let their employees move into phased retirement. Unfortunately, Canada’s tax laws don’t accommodate it.
Those turning 65 today are living longer than previous generations – to an average of 83 for men and 88 for women.
“For most people, the motivation to keep working is to have a healthy life,” Foot says. “I’m talking about both physical and emotional health.”
But if you’re an older worker, don’t count on being in demand. You’ll face competition from the echo generation – children of boomers, born from 1980 to 1996 – for years to come.
Predictions of a labour shortage as boomers retire are exaggerated, Foot says. He doesn’t expect to see anything until at least 2020.
And he doubts Canada will face a labour shortage at all, except in certain occupations such as health care.
“Aging populations have much lower growth. You don’t need as many new bodies when there’s lower growth.”
The echo generation peaked in 1991. Now 19, they’re in post-secondary courses, stretching classroom space and enrollment to the seams.
But a few years from now, they’ll be in the workforce, competing for jobs that may be in scarce supply because of automation and outsourcing.
source: thestar
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