Early Retirement: Does It Make Sense for Employers?

In recent years, we have seen more companies move to early retirement/buy-out deals with their older workers. In these times of current downsizing and the present 6% unemployment, it's hard to imagine we might see a worker shortage. That is possibly what some companies will face by the end of the decade. In this light, do early retirements and buyouts make sense. Some companies are beginning to wonder.

Baby boomers, or those 78 million people born between 1946 and 1964, will start retiring within five years, with retirements peaking in 2015. The smaller Generation X, only 45 million strong, can't fill all those baby-boomer shoes, and if the Bureau of Labor Statistics is correct in predicting 22 million additional jobs by 2010, we'll face a major shortage of experienced workers.

Who will be most impacted by this trend? It's likely to be pharmaceutical, health care, aerospace, utility and old-line manufacturing companies, all of which grew in size decades ago and are now filled with large baby-boomer workforces.

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