The Unexpected Upside of an Aging Workforce

Hiring and retaining older workers can help boost your company's bottom line.

- ALEXA MIKHAIL

THE GRAYING OF the U.S. workforce is gaining momentum. A Pew Research survey found nearly a fifth of Americans age 65 and older were employed in 2023, nearly double the three decades prior. Employees 55 and older will constitute over a quarter of the global workforce by 2031, according to an analysis from Bain & Co. last year.

Finding ways to capitalize on an increasingly intergenerational workforce is top of mind for Jason LaRue, national managing partner of talent and culture at KPMG, who supports the firm's 36,000 U.S. partners and professionals.

"We're absolutely going to have to be able to attract workers across a wide set of generations, including people who have had longer careers already," LaRue tells Fortune. "There's no magic about, 'I turned X age, and therefore I am capable or not capable of doing something else.""

This marks an unprecedented time for most workplaces, where the presence of retirementage workers used to be rare. However, given the current U.S. labor shortage, it could be a win-win for those older workers and their employers alike. As the pool of older workers grows, so does the evidence that their presence on multigenerational teams can boost a company's bottom line, foster innovation, and help combat widespread burnout. In the war for talent, employers must implement novel ways to integrate and engage both longtime and new cohorts of experienced workers.

For practical and professional reasons, adults are working longer. For some, the financial impact of caregiving and the need for a steady paycheck to support their longer, healthier life spans have made traditional retirement impossible. "We're having to try and invent a life that hasn't been lived before," says John Beard, director of the International Longevity Center-USA and professor at the Robert. N. Butler Columbia Aging Center.