If you’re a Baby Boomer within sight of age 65, you’re probably
thinking about your next move—and it may well be a career change instead of a
traditional kick-back-and-relax retirement. Among 1,005 Boomers who haven’t yet
left their full-time careers, 60% expect to keep working at least part-time
after they “retire,” says a study from Bankers Life’s Center for a SecureRetirement.
The job market is ready for them. Of the 2,293 Boomers in the
study who have already retired but have found other work, 80% reported it was
“easy” to find the jobs they have now.
“As the next wave of Boomers retires, the competition is likely
to intensify,” says Bankers Life president Scott Goldberg. “But, with part-time
and freelance roles becoming more prevalent in the overall job market, there is
good evidence to suggest that future retirees will have an even greater number
of positions to consider, even if the competition for those roles gets more
intense.”
Great, but anyone contemplating what lies ahead might want to
consider two of the study’s less cheerful findings. First, it seems that most
people overestimate their ability to choose when they retire. Nearly seven in
ten (69%) of middle-income retirees would have liked to have stayed longer in
their old careers, but had to leave earlier than they planned for “reasons
beyond their control,” the report says—most commonly because of health problems
(39%), being laid off (19%), or to care for a loved one (9%).
Second, Boomers’ expectations about what they’ll be able to earn
in their post-retirement careers seem overly optimistic. Only about one in five
(21%) of the people in the survey who are still working in their primary
careers say they’d be “willing to take a pay cut” when they move on to another
job in retirement. That doesn’t jibe with the experience of current retirees
who are working, almost three-quarters (72%) of whom report earning less on an hourly
basis now than they did in their old roles. More than half (53%) say they make
“much less.”
That doesn’t mean they’re unhappy. About 80% of the people who
retired and then found new jobs say they like their current careers better than
their old ones. They also report less stress and “better relationships” than
the Boomers surveyed who haven’t retired yet.
Even so, the study’s message is clear. Given your druthers, you
might stay in your pre-retirement career until you’re 65, 70, or beyond, and
then move on to something that pays equally well. But, just in case that
doesn’t work out, it’s smart to have a Plan B.
AGT is here to help plan that option B
