Working in Retirement Survey Insights

By Brent Meyer — SafeMoney.com Founder & Editor Reviewed by Licensed Financial Professionals  |  SafeMoney.com — Trusted Since 2011  |  Updated Regularly Quick Answer: Explore our Working in Retirement survey to understand trends and prepare effectively. Discover safe money alternatives for your retirement planning. Countless surveys say that Baby Boomers and Gen Xers aren’t saving enough for retirement. But a recent survey from Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies shows another place where American workers are falling short: preparing for work in retirement. In the study, 56% of workers said they expect to work at least part-time past age 65. Among Baby Boomers, 6 in 10 (65%) expect to or already working past the traditional retirement age. More than half of Gen Xers (56%) also planned on at least part-time employment during retirement. However, that vision may be out of reach, as few workers seem to be taking steps to make it happen. Less than half of workers (46%) are keeping their skills up-to-date, a finding that held for Baby Boomers and Gen Xers alike. And only 18% are scoping out the job market and opportunities available, with 15% of Baby Boomers and of Gen Xers alike reporting an active lookout. Overall, a number of workers seemed to believe their employers would let them stay on part-time — which well could not happen due to present employment market conditions and practices. Meanwhile, the findings don’t bode well for expectations of working past 65. That’s even as 83% cited financial reasons as why they plan to continue doing so. Why Work Opportunities in Retirement May be Limited Even though a majority of workers said their current employers support working past 65, employment statistics may show otherwise. As Catherine Collinson, president of Transamerica, noted in a Forbes column by Richard Eisenberg — looking at data trends such as the labor force participation rate shows a step-off in employment after age 65. This decline in employment after age 65 can be seen in the graph below, which shows participation rates by age group over a three-decade spread. Another point of interest is duration of unemployment by age group. Compared to workers in younger age groups, workers who are 65 years and older have a longer average length of unemployment. Whereas a 20s-something had an average unemployment span of around 19-21 weeks in 2017, a worker aged 65 or beyond had an average duration of