Your job provides a paycheck and valuable benefits. It’s a social connection, a mental exercise and a professional identity. It’s a reason to get up in the morning, a place to go, a source of personal satisfaction and the immediate response to the question, “What do you do?” For better or worse, our jobs are an essential element of our lives, even as we age.
For all those reasons, 73-year-old Rosemarie Hahn hated to leave her accounting job at Eastern Area Agency on Aging earlier this year.
Hahn and her husband first retired in 2005 and moved from Massachusetts to Maine. They had family connections here, she said, and life was more “cost-effective.” They bought a house in the rural town of Stetson and settled in.
“Then I said, ‘Now what?’” Hahn said. “I’m wasn’t going to sit around and do nothing all day.”
So she signed up for some volunteer shifts, providing transportation through the local chapter of the American Red Cross.
“It was great,” the former administrative assistant said. “I met all kinds of people, and I got to know the area.”
Then she heard Eastern Area Agency on Aging was looking for a receptionist who would work 10 hours per week. She applied and was hired. She liked the work and the workplace, and eventually her hours got bumped up to half time, which made the commute from Stetson more worthwhile.
Two years ago, when she was 71, she was offered a 25 hours per week job in the agency’s fiscal services office.
“They told me, ‘You’ll have to learn to use the computer,’” she recalled. “I had to learn the specific program they used for accounting and a lot of accounting terms I wasn’t familiar with, too.”
She mastered the new skills quickly, and soon she was working independently in the small office.
For Hahn, the job at Eastern Area Agency on Aging was more than a paycheck.
“It was nice to have the extra income,” she said. “But it was really more about getting out there, keeping up my skills and having a purpose other than cooking dinner and cleaning the house.”
Unfortunately, Hahn’s husband recently suffered a series of medical problems, and in January, reluctantly, she retired again in order to care for him and manage their household. They have enough money to live on without her modest paycheck, and she’s grateful for that.
“But, it was enlivening,” she said, a touch of wistfulness in her voice. “There was always something going on at that agency. I learned a lot about senior care, for one thing. If things get really tough at home, I can always turn to the Eastern Agency for help.”
Changing demographics, changing priorities
Along with the rest of the state’s population, Maine’s workforce is aging. Data from the Maine Department of Labor show a significant increase in the number of older workers between 2005 and 2015. In 2005, with an overall unemployment rate of 5 percent, there were 106,000 workers between 55 and 64 years old; in 2015, with an unemployment rate of 4.4 percent, the number was 143,000. During the same period, the number of workers 65 and over more than doubled, rising from 25,000 to 52,000.
The figures reflect the bubble of aging baby boomers passing through the workplace, according to Glenn Mills of the Maine Department of Labor.
“We have a much larger population of workers headed toward retirement than we have teens heading into the workforce,” he said.
The natural demographic shift is compounded by younger Mainers leaving the state for more vibrant economic climates, he said, increasing pressure on Maine employers to keep older workers on their payrolls.
But older Mainers have their own reasons to keep working. According to national labor statistics, one-third of Mainers age 65 and older have no retirement income other than Social Security, at an annual average of $16,000. For many, continued employment is the key to financial survival.
Mainers in higher income brackets also find themselves needing to work into their 60s, 70s and beyond as they try to recover financial losses from the stock market and housing crashes in the late 2000s.
But a big reason older Mainers are staying in the workforce is that they find it an important and satisfying aspect of their lives.
“People dream about retirement their whole lives, and as it gets closer suddenly it’s terrifying,” Lannie Moffatt, chief employee experience officer for Bangor Savings Bank, said. “It’s very hard to imagine waking up and not having a job to go to.”
In response to the availability and needs of an aging workforce, Bangor Savings Bank — along with several other large employers in Maine, including retailer L.L. Bean and the engineering and construction firm Cianbro — has developed strategies for attracting and retaining valuable older employees.
Age-friendly incentives at the 164-year-old financial services company include flexible scheduling, the opportunity to work fewer hours per week, training in new technologies, regular ergonomic assessments, access to adaptive office equipment and more.
“If someone’s working here and doing a good job, we want to keep them as long as possible,” Moffatt said.
Out of the company’s approximately 740 employees, she said, about 130 — more than a third — are 50 years old or older, and 66 are over age 60.
For 58-year-old Judy Lizotte, who has worked in Bangor Savings Bank’s wealth management division in Augusta for the past five years, the idea of retiring holds little appeal. Working until she’s 66 or 67 will boost her social security payments, but for personal reasons “I may go beyond that,” she said.
“I like my job very much,” Lizotte said recently in a phone interview. In addition to enjoying her interactions with co-workers and clients, she appreciates putting in a good day’s work and the sense of accomplishment it brings.
Because her personal life includes caring for an aging parent and a family member with chronic illness, she is grateful for Bangor Savings Bank’s family-friendly policies. For example, she recently was given extra time off so she wouldn’t use up precious vacation hours taking family members to their medical appointments.
“They said I needed to be rested to do my job,” she said. “There is always coverage for me when I have to be away. Everyone just steps up. I feel very blessed.”
Mutual benefit
AARP, which advocates on behalf of Americans age 50 and older, says age-friendly strategies like these help employers prosper from the availability of baby boom workers. The organization has launched a national initiative aimed at supporting and promoting the older workforce, pointing out that older employees bring valuable qualities, such as reliability, a strong work ethic, professional expertise and life experience to the workplace.
“You hear a lot about the need to recruit younger people to Maine or to keep them from leaving,” Lori Parham, executive director of AARP in Maine, said. “But we can’t forget about the fact that we have a large and growing population of 55-plus workers right here who bring a lot of value to the workplace.”
For boomers looking to stay in the workforce, Parham offered a few tips to maximize employability.
First, she said, be proactive about keeping up with technology, including social media and computer applications. Technology is constantly changing and the ability to adapt with it is a valuable skill. Almost every job these days requires a degree of comfort with digital devices and processes.
Second, if you’re employed, don’t be complacent. Even if you’re not looking for new responsibilities, find opportunities to sharpen your skill set and expand your expertise, including professional conferences, academic courses and on-site training.
Third, if you have longtime experience in your workplace, consider mentoring younger employees just coming on board. Formal or informal mentoring relationships show your value and leadership, and younger employees have important ideas to teach you, too.
Finally, Parham said, while it’s natural and important to develop friendly relationships with younger co-workers, draw mature boundaries. An occasional after-hours gathering is one thing, she said, “but don’t go to happy hour every night after work with your 21-year-old co-workers.”
