Will the Jobs of the Future Support an Older Workforce?

In recent decades, older workers have generally been working longer, which boosts prospects for a secure retirement. However, continued progress could run into headwinds in the coming years. On the supply side, some individuals may be reaching the physical limits of longer worklives. And even if workers can work longer, they must find employers willing to hire or retain them. This brief, based on a recent paper, looks ahead to 2030 and assesses how amenable the future labor market will be to older workers.1 By linking projections of future jobs to the types of jobs that are a good fit for older worker’s abilities, the analysis goes beyond simply looking at what jobs older workers do today to explore what they could do going forward. The discussion proceeds as follows. The first section provides background on trends in working longer and potential obstacles. The second section summarizes the data and methodology for the analysis. The third section reports the results. The initial analysis indicates that jobs currently employing older workers are projected to grow relatively slowly. However, for the jobs that older workers could do, the analysis finds a lack of statistically significant results, suggesting that these jobs are likely to grow at the same pace as jobs overall. The final section concludes that the jobs of the future should be able to support an aging workforce.