Redefining retirement If you think that retirement means the cessation of working, you're living in the dark ages.
Working, as we define it, is providing a service or doing manual labor for a wage.
But if we now define it as something we choose to do because we get our lives from it, it has a whole new meaning.
Consider these facts from the RetirementJobs.
com website: §In a study conducted by American Association of Retired Persons, 79 percent of baby boomers said they plan to work in some capacity during retirement.
§Workers 55 and older will make up roughly 20 percent of the U.
S.
labor force by 2012, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
§There will be 4 million more jobs than workers by 2011, according to the Employment Policy Foundation.
§By 2020 there will be a 60 percent increase in the number of people over age 65, while the segment of the population ranging in age from 18 to 44 will increase by just 4 percent, according to the Hudson Institute, a nonprofit research organization.
If the Baby Boomers don't continue to work in some capacity, there will not be enough workers to keep this economy going.
Ouch! So if you're soon facing that conundrum, how would you decide to incorporate some type of work into your retirement and why? First of all, consider the non-economic value of work: the social interaction, the sense of being needed, the ability to learn new things, and the challenge to your brain to keep current and exercise decision-making skills.
If it doesn't seem like much, consider the sad fact that many employees have died within one year of the traditional retirement because they felt no purpose or value to their lives.
Secondly, work doesn't have to be for pay.
Volunteering on a regular basis, in many capacities, like being in the trenches or serving on boards of directors (paid and volunteer) offer much of the same non-economic value as explained above.
Thirdly, for those who have no economic reason to work, it offers the opportunity to get involved in a different type of work, like being a handyman, or a painter, or an artist, or a television or radio broadcaster.
The list is endless.
But if you're not sure, try it out for a few days and get to see up front and personal what these careers are all about.
To do that, go to the website http://VocationVacations.
com where they have hundreds of people who will allow you to come to their place of business and shadow them for three or four days, for a small cost, and try it out yourself.
Keep trying until one clicks.
Fourthly, it allows you to stay current in life.
Rather than tire out your family and friends with talk of when I was (fill in the blank), I used to...
Take that knowledge and volunteer it or use it for another job in the same field.
By staying active in your existing career, you can become more related to the world you now live in and not the one you left behind.
Fifthly, you can take one of a number of diagnostic tests designed to help you find out what fields of endeavor might be of interest to you.
These tests can be taken online or by reading some books on the subject, most notably, the What Color is Your Retirement book, by Dr.
Richard Johnson.
His website http://RetirementOptions.
com is a great resource, as is the 99 question, Retirement Options Profile quiz.
As important as pending retirement is to employees, the specter of losing a valued employee is as important or more so, to the employer.
When you consider the many years of knowledge that leave the business along with the employee, the employer may have to step back into the business to take on chores he or she has long forsaken in the pursuit of other management or fiscal responsibilities.
When we consider that age 65 is an arbitrary number, decided upon in England in the 1600s, we must acknowledge it no longer reflects the American mortality rates.
People are still vital and energized will into their 80s.
So let's take another look at both sides of the equation.
Consider the value of a vital and well-educated work force solving the problem for employers in the near future and the need to keep our senior citizens involved and engaged in the world.
Those with vision will see the value on both ends of the spectrum.
Working, as we define it, is providing a service or doing manual labor for a wage.
But if we now define it as something we choose to do because we get our lives from it, it has a whole new meaning.
Consider these facts from the RetirementJobs.
com website: §In a study conducted by American Association of Retired Persons, 79 percent of baby boomers said they plan to work in some capacity during retirement.
§Workers 55 and older will make up roughly 20 percent of the U.
S.
labor force by 2012, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
§There will be 4 million more jobs than workers by 2011, according to the Employment Policy Foundation.
§By 2020 there will be a 60 percent increase in the number of people over age 65, while the segment of the population ranging in age from 18 to 44 will increase by just 4 percent, according to the Hudson Institute, a nonprofit research organization.
If the Baby Boomers don't continue to work in some capacity, there will not be enough workers to keep this economy going.
Ouch! So if you're soon facing that conundrum, how would you decide to incorporate some type of work into your retirement and why? First of all, consider the non-economic value of work: the social interaction, the sense of being needed, the ability to learn new things, and the challenge to your brain to keep current and exercise decision-making skills.
If it doesn't seem like much, consider the sad fact that many employees have died within one year of the traditional retirement because they felt no purpose or value to their lives.
Secondly, work doesn't have to be for pay.
Volunteering on a regular basis, in many capacities, like being in the trenches or serving on boards of directors (paid and volunteer) offer much of the same non-economic value as explained above.
Thirdly, for those who have no economic reason to work, it offers the opportunity to get involved in a different type of work, like being a handyman, or a painter, or an artist, or a television or radio broadcaster.
The list is endless.
But if you're not sure, try it out for a few days and get to see up front and personal what these careers are all about.
To do that, go to the website http://VocationVacations.
com where they have hundreds of people who will allow you to come to their place of business and shadow them for three or four days, for a small cost, and try it out yourself.
Keep trying until one clicks.
Fourthly, it allows you to stay current in life.
Rather than tire out your family and friends with talk of when I was (fill in the blank), I used to...
Take that knowledge and volunteer it or use it for another job in the same field.
By staying active in your existing career, you can become more related to the world you now live in and not the one you left behind.
Fifthly, you can take one of a number of diagnostic tests designed to help you find out what fields of endeavor might be of interest to you.
These tests can be taken online or by reading some books on the subject, most notably, the What Color is Your Retirement book, by Dr.
Richard Johnson.
His website http://RetirementOptions.
com is a great resource, as is the 99 question, Retirement Options Profile quiz.
As important as pending retirement is to employees, the specter of losing a valued employee is as important or more so, to the employer.
When you consider the many years of knowledge that leave the business along with the employee, the employer may have to step back into the business to take on chores he or she has long forsaken in the pursuit of other management or fiscal responsibilities.
When we consider that age 65 is an arbitrary number, decided upon in England in the 1600s, we must acknowledge it no longer reflects the American mortality rates.
People are still vital and energized will into their 80s.
So let's take another look at both sides of the equation.
Consider the value of a vital and well-educated work force solving the problem for employers in the near future and the need to keep our senior citizens involved and engaged in the world.
Those with vision will see the value on both ends of the spectrum.
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