Joseph De Avila, Wall Street Journal

March 25, 2012

After the recession thinned the ranks of employed New Yorkers, one group has emerged from the downturn with improved standing in the labor force—older workers.

One in five working New Yorkers is now 55 years or older, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, a sign of both the aging of the baby boom generation and of older workers holding on to jobs longer in the face of savings diminished by the recession.

While young and middle-aged workers in New York may still be struggling to find work after the 2008 recession, older workers are becoming a larger part of the work force, increasing by 16% since 2007, according to the Census. At the same time, working New Yorkers between 25 and 54 declined by 7%.

States across the country, including neighboring New Jersey and Connecticut, have experienced similar trends, as older workers become more educated, stay healthier and work later into life.

"The numbers will continue to go up, particularly as more boomers hit their 60s," said Sara Rix, senior strategic policy adviser with AARP Public Policy Institute.

Baby boomers—generally defined as those who were born between 1946 and 1964—now make up about a quarter of the population, both nationwide and in New York. By 2030, nearly one in four New Yorkers will be 60 years old or older, said John Cochran, assistant director of the New York state Office for the Aging.

To be sure, the past four years have been painful for many older workers. While the unemployment rate for people older than 55 is 5.9% nationally—it is 8.3% overall—they often have a tougher time finding jobs once they are unemployed, taking about 54 weeks to get a new job compared with 36 weeks for younger workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The recession also drained the savings of many older workers, forcing them to delay retirement.

"Certainly the economic downturn has created a lot of pressure for people," said Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes, director of the Sloan Center on Aging and Work at Boston College.

In some cases, older New Yorkers like Susan Stone, of Ossining, N.Y., in Westchester County, may never retire.

Ms. Stone, who said she is in her 60s, was laid off in 2009 from a job as a speech pathologist. She has been working part-time for about a year doing strategic planning and marketing for a nonprofit that helps senior citizens in Manhattan.

Ms. Stone got her current job through ReServe Inc., a group that connects older workers to the nonprofit industry. But she only works 14 hours a week and scrapes by to pay her condo mortgage.

"The bottom line is that it's an impossibility for me to retire, especially now that I haven't been able to build up income for the last three years alone," said Ms. Stone, who is looking for additional consulting work. "I'm eating up whatever savings I had, which was never significantly high. Social Security certainly is not the answer."

Older workers began growing in number during the late 1980s and 90s, said Ms. Rix, as the employers began switching from pension retirement plans to 401(k) accounts, which put more of the savings burden on employees. Changes to Social Security have encouraged older people to continue working by offering larger payments for retiring after the age of 70. And the trend is also fueled by better physical health habits and more white-collar jobs that don't take the same toll as manual labor.

"More people are in the types of jobs that facilitate a later working life," Ms. Rix said.

Older workers are a growing sections of the work force even as they remain the least educated, according to the Census.

About 20% of people 65 and older have college degrees, and government officials such as Mr. Cochran say that boosting those numbers to help them compete with better educated young people will be the biggest challenge confronting older workers.

"Are those skills still applicable and are you ready to compete?" Mr. Cochran said.

Meanwhile, employers are offering more job training as employees get older, said Ms. Pitt-Catsouphes of the Sloan Center on Aging and Work. After the recession, "no one wants to get caught off guard and say, 'My skills are out of date,'" she said.

Many workers have decided to use their current skill set for as long as possible.

Jennie Lyons, 65, wants to be able to say she has been teaching for at least 20 years before she retires. That means Ms. Lyons, from Tarrytown, N.Y., will continue teaching computer science at a private school in Westchester until she is at least 69.

"I think it's going to take me saying, 'I'm done teaching,'" Ms. Lyons said. "And I'm not done teaching yet."

Working those additional years will also help her add to her savings before she finally calls it quits, Ms. Lyons said. "The longer I work, the easier it will be to retire."

Others like Marcia Rose Yawitz, a commercial real-estate broker, say they never think about quitting even though they can afford to retire comfortably. Her competitive side won't let her do it, she said. "It's just not in the genes," says Ms. Yawitz, 77, from the Upper West Side. "They say they are going to have to carry me out of here."