The workforce of the future: the aged or the robots?

The Workforce of the Future Should Be Gray, Not Shiny

The rise of the robots might make for more exciting headlines, but aging economies like the United States should be rethinking their workplaces in a different way, writes Tyler Cowen for Bloomberg: Making them more appealing for older workers.

“The populations of the US and many other developed nations are aging, and the big surprise has been that older people want to work more than in previous generations,” Cowen writes. “Against many prior expectations, the labor-force-participation rate of older Americans started rising in the 1980s and 1990s. For instance, the labor-force-participation rate for men ages 65 to 69 was 25 percent in 1985 but 37 percent in 2016. By 2020, over one-quarter of the workforce will be over 55 years of age.

“I would suggest that the ability to spot, mobilize and deploy older workers is the next biggest source of competitive advantage in the US. The sober reality is that many companies should retool their methods to fit better with the experience and sound judgment found so often in older workers.”

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