Paper Topic:

the impact baby boomers have on today work force

Impact of Baby Boomers on Today 's Workforce

Baby boomers are those born between 1945 to 1964 , the boom of the US population . Data from the Department of Labor BLS , in 1998 indicate that there were 77 million baby boomers and this represented 37 of the country 's population . As of 2008 , baby boomers make up 40 of US workforce . This percentage is expected to increase dramatically in the next decade and baby boomers will make up majority of the employees in many companies (Department of Labor , 2008

Companies are now at

a dilemma on the effects of this population boom of older workers . Human Resource Departments are torn between decisions to retain or terminate their services . At one hand , older workers have the experiences and technical expertise many are valued employees . Retiring or terminating them may mean significant loss to many companies . On the other hand , many older employees have not kept pace with modern technologies their skills have become obsolete . Older employees also are more expensive considering higher salary rates , pension and other benefits

An article from ABC by John Strossel and Frank Mastropolo , Fired for Being Too Old : Unfair or Good for Business (2008 ) presented various age discrimination cases d against companies . Like many , disc jockeys of 99 .7 KY Max Floyd and Tanna Guthrie were fired from work and without any warning . Though they were told that the company was changing formats , they knew that they were fired for being too old and they felt hurt and betrayed . Why couldn 't they keep us ? We 've been there , been loyal with the company , and they didn 't change the music a lot (Strossel Mastropolo , 2008 ,

. 1 . They sought protection of the law for age discrimination and d million-dollar lawsuit against the company . Sympathy may be given to baby boomers that end up being replaced with young , fresh talents . But in the competitive industry businesses have to survive and be able to replace their aging employees when needed

References

Strossel , J . and Mastropolo , F (2008 ) Fired from Being Too Old : Unfair or Good for Business . ABC News . Retrieved August 19 , 2008 from http /abcnews .go .com /Business /Stossel /Story ?id 5444494 page 1

Department of Labor (2008 . Aging Baby Boomers in a New Workforce Development System . Retrieved August 19 , 2008 from http /www .doleta .gov /Seniors /other_docs /AgingBoomers .pdf...

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