The type of labor needed in today's society has been undergoing a constant change. There is an increase in demand for workers but there is a much greater demand for educated white-collar workers, especially management material. Projections state that the growth in managerial positions will increase 20% by the year 2010 yet the population aged 35-50 will decrease nearly 10%. What these figures say is the already diminishing supply of executives is going to dwindle even more over the next 10 years. There is a shortage of blue-collar workers now and there will also be an even greater shortage of them in the future. In order for employers to find people who are willing to

One example of how companies are handling the situation is utilizing their aging managers as consultants. Chevron became aware of the problem three years ago and this is an example of how they have handled it. One of their well-respected executive chemical engineers, Jesse Krider announced his retirement from Chevron but he now works as a consultant overseas. This enables Chevron to hold on to his 30 plus years of expertise and allows Krider to see the world doing something he enjoys. It is a mutually beneficial situation. Another solution is already up and running at IBM in Belgium. IBM needed to cut lower labor costs and they concentrated on offering an early retirement package to the 55-60 year olds. What they did next was to set up another company called Skill Team and offered a job to any of the former IBM employees affected by the forced retirement. The rewards to the employee at Skill Team are working 58% of the time they worked before for 88% of the last salary received at IBM. Skill Team offers its services to IBM allowing IBM to maintain a fair percentage of its "think pool" while the former big blue employees can ease their way into retirement. A third example is corporations inviting the retired executives to sit on the boards of their companies and subsidiaries. John Castle, chairman of the leveraged-buyout firm Castle Harlen Inc, exercises this philosophy. He taps into the resource of the retired executives by asking them to serve on the boards of the companies his firm takes over. This arrangement is perfect for all involved. The retiree is looking at a short-term commitment because Castle Harlen usually sells off the companies it acquires in less than seven years and Castle Harlen has the services of a qualified director without the worries of what the director will do when they sell off or dissolve the company. These are a few examples of the creative approach some of today's companies are taking to cope with the economic obstacles caused by an aging workforce.

The companies of today are rapidly losing their think pools. The older executives possess a great deal of knowledge and diplomacy that is priceless to many organizations. These people could be mentors to the future stars of the company but they can't do that if they are no longer employed in some capacity by their respective firm. What the forward thinkers of today's companies are trying to do is lure these valuable assets into staying in the work force. In order to do that, human resource departments must be very flexible with their offers. Some companies are offering what they refer to as "dream jobs" to their execs who are considering retirement. What a "dream job" consists of is the opportunity for the 'would be retiree' to work in whatever location and department of the corpo

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1887
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)