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The Business Case for Hiring 50+ Workers

Leading American businesses can gain and maintain a competitive labor market advantage by employing and retaining 50+ workers.  Here are five critical reasons to hire 50+ workers:

1.  50+ workers have the soft skills employers say they need.  American business faces a skills crisis with 40% of companies reporting difficulty filling jobs due to lack of available talent.  Overwhelmingly, business leaders point to soft skills — professionalism, written communications skills, analytical skills, and interpersonal skills — as the critical piece that is often missing from their talent pools. 50+ workers have spent decades honing soft skills, which can continue to improve until very late in life.

2.  50+ workers are more motivated than younger workers. Towers Watson research says older workers are more motivated to exceed expectations on the job than their younger counterparts. Motivation is strongly tied to employee engagement, and better engagement means better bottom-line financial performance. 

Towers Watson is a leading global professional services company that helps organizations improve performance through effective people, riskand financial management.

3.  50+ workers are more loyal and more likely to stay with their company than younger workers.  Not only can replacement costs run between 25% to 150% of an individual's annual compensation, turnover can also contribute to customer-service disruption, declines in morale among remaining employees and loss of "corporate memory." 50+ workers aren’t just more loyal — they’re also more reliable, have lower absentee rates and have strong work ethics.

4.  50+ workers are the new normal.  The older the baby boom generation gets, the more 50+ workers are participating in the labor force.  Employers can’t afford to overlook 20% of their available talent pool.

5.  50+ workers have a “strong capacity and willingness to learn new tasks, processes and technologies.” U.S. Department of Labor Aging Worker Initiative studies have demonstrated 50+ workers’ capacity to learn new processes and technologies.