Employers may need to adjust to older workforce

CBIS director addresses changing face of workers

COLUMBIA BASIN — As industry rockets upward in Grant County, employers may find themselves looking at a different employee work pool.

Allan Peterson, director of the Center for Business and Industry Services at Big Bend Community College, points to statistics released by the U.S. Department of Labor in December 2005. The statistics project future job growth by industry, occupation and the likely composition of the workforce for new positions from 2004 to 2014.

Nationwide, workers aged 16 to 24 are not expected to grow, while 25 to 54 are expected to grow per year by 0.3 percent.

But workers aged 55 and older are expected to increase by 4.1 percent each year.

Peterson calculates similar growth rates in the state of Washington for a time period from 2000 to 2005, with annual increases of 1 percent for workers aged 16 to 24, 0.5 percent for workers aged 25 to 54 and a 4.6 percent increase for workers over 55.

Nationally, manufacturing is expected to slow down and construction to grow at a slower rate. But Peterson looks at regional labor projections showing the area bucks the national trend.

"Traditionally, we've always looked at young people to fill everything," he said. "Now, because that group is smaller or not even growing, but if industry grows like it is in Grant County, we really won't have a pool to draw from that's ready to go."

It means employers may have to change the way they think about the people they hire, Peterson said.

Workers over the age of 55 have a lot of skill sets, he said, and the community college sees a number of older people looking to change careers.

"It tells me that if I'm an industry and I'm looking for somebody, I should probably be looking not for the younger person," he explained. "I might be looking at somebody that already has skill sets but needs to be trained into doing something different."

During World War II when the male workforce was overseas, airplane manufacturers utilized the female population for assembly work. Peterson referred to Rosie the Riveter posters, and postulates the current situation might require production of posters calling for workers over 55, like "Wendell and Wendy the Welders."

"We may be looking for somebody in that older age that, with some new skills, will be able to do work and producing for what we normally would be looking for somebody else," he said.

There are a lot of pluses to hiring people over the age of 55, Peterson said, pointing to work ethic or benefit of life and work experience.

At the same time, employers may find themselves having to consider such adjustments as working around motivations, needs and schedules of an older workforce. Many may be in second careers for benefits or retirement funding purposes, while others may just want to do something different.

"I think there's a lot of (workers) entering back in the work force that maybe their retirement wasn't all they thought it was going to be," Peterson said. "That doesn't necessarily mean they want to do what they were doing. They might want to do something different."

Peterson advises employers recognize the person they have on payroll is probably who they have.

"If you're looking for skill sets or someone trained in a special area, maybe the employer is going to have to get involved and develop people more than they probably have in the past," he said.