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Baby Boomer Job Search
Popular service providers used by Baby Boomers in the United States to search for part-time and seasonal work in retirement are the AARP Job Board and Retirement Jobs. The most popular part-time/seasonal jobs are drivers, medical jobs, warehousing, general labor, and administrative gigs. Below are our deep findings and methodology.
POPULAR SERVICE PROVIDERS
1. AARP Job Board
- The ARRP Job board is a tool focused on the experience of the workers. It also helps them look for job openings that may match their interests. The board requires the worker to enter his/her name and email address and then redirects him/her to the company site.
- The person can choose to narrow the search with the job title, industry, position type, location, company, and other features. The site also allows the worker to save their resume, profile picture, references, and cover letter.
- Although AARP does have a membership fee ($16/year), access to the job board is primarily free. The site also offers tips for resumes and interviews.
- For employers, the site offers different packages (based on the company size), this is, standard, premium, and custom. Each package has different features and prices.
- For small companies (between 51-250 employees), the standard package costs $199 and offers a 30-day post, employer profile page, and applicant tracking system.
- The premium package costs $399 and offers a 60-day post, employer profile page, applicant tracking system, sponsored employer, featured job function, and a dedicated account manager.
- The custom package offers all the premium features plus unlimited job importing, ATS integration, and branding options. Price on demand.
- For companies with over 250 employees, prices and packages are only available on demand.
2. Retirement Jobs
- Retirement Jobs service helps older workers get projects/job that suits their lifestyle in more active and productive companies. The service has over one million members nationwide.
- They provide both free and premium options. The premium service ($99/year) gives access to seminars and special content and enables job seekers to identify job openings from employers. The job search is free.
- For employers, the company charges $99 per job post and they offer packages for those posting more than 10 jobs.
- The application fee for the certification ranges from $995 to $1,995 depending on the company size.
POPULAR JOBS
1. Types of jobs
- According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor, workers aged 55 or older are mostly in the following fields (by the exact order) management, professional or related, sales and office, production, transportation or material moving, natural resources, construction, and maintenance.
- BLS data also show that older workers are concentrated in the following occupations, having at least one third of the total labor force made up by workers ages 55 or older, archivists, curators, bus drivers, clergy, furniture finishers, jewelers, legislators, medical transcriptionists, proofreaders and copy makers, real estate, and tax preparers.
- 16.42% of people aged 65 or older are self-employed, almost a double from those aged between 55 – 64 (8.8%).
- 27% of workers aged 55 or older are working part-time.
- The BLS analyzed data from a survey conducted with over 68,000 people to discover what type of work people aged over 65 were/are doing.
- They uncovered that 25.3% worked on food preparation or serving related, 9.9% office and administrative support, 9.8% sales and related, 9.4% management, 5.7% transportation and material moving, 5.2% education, training, and library, 4.3% healthcare practitioner and technical, 3.9% business and financial operations, 3.7% personal care and services, 3.7% production, 3.1% building, grounds cleaning, and maintenance, 2.5% construction, and extraction, while other areas were all under 2%.
2. Part-time/seasonal
- As per Indeed, part-time driving and medical jobs are the most searched by people aged 62 and above.
- 50% of baby boomers plan to earn some income after they retire. The majority of Baby Boomers stated they plan to work only part-time during retirement. The reason for continuing to work is either because they need the money or social interaction.
- A recent report discovered that Baby Boomers are the winners of the gig economy, completing more jobs than millennials.
- Baby Boomers also work in a much wider range of industries and are making more money than millennials. The average Baby Boomer earns close to $573.55 a month as an addition to their income. This figure can be much higher in larger markets and in places like Northern California it goes up to $1003.45 and $814.73 in New York.
- According to Wonolo, Baby Boomers receive a greater feedback and are requested more often by a business looking for staff due to their work ethic.
- The top categories Boomers are working in are general labor, administrative gig, and fulfillment/warehousing. They also do physical gigs.
3. Second Career
Teaching
- Retirees that are looking for new challenges, and to make a difference in their community, they are attracted to this career, especially women (10.3% vs 3% men).
College instructor jobs
- Male Baby Boomers with advanced degrees and work experience often find a post-retirement career as a college instructor at a university, professional school or community college (4.1% men vs 1.4% women).
- Trade schools are often looking for people with real-life work experience for teaching positions and some colleges offer a fast-track teaching license for those with a bachelor’s degree.
Consulting
- The management consulting field is expected to grow by 14% in the next years, and the consultants with experience in reducing costs or improving efficiency may be particularly sought after.
- The experience gathered for decades and the business contacts make this a good option for retirees, besides the flexible schedule.
Administrative assistant roles
- This job can be both part-time and full time, and it attracts those that miss the office environment.
- It is most common among women after retirement, including secretaries (5.9%), receptionists and information clerks (3.7%), office clerks (2.3%), and bookkeeping and accounting clerks (1.9%).
- Meanwhile, 1.2% of older women are taking remote positions as supervisors of the office and administrative workers.
Nursing jobs
- Many women chose to work by providing care to others as personal care aides (5.2%), registered nurses (4.6%), and home health aides (2.8%).
- This is a blooming market, and the demand for personal and home health aides is expected to grow in the next years.
Real estate agent
- Real estate is also a popular career among women (3.8%).
Sales
- Senior who enjoy social aspects of working life and working outside of the house might be attracted to a sales position, with over 3% of men and women finding new positions after 62 years as retail salespeople, while 2% working as supervisors of retail sales workers. This job also allows for part-time schedules.
- Men also work as manufacturing and wholesale sales representatives.
- Other in-demand, second careers for retirees according to the Urban Institute analysis are manager, management consultant, financial services, writer, and engineers.
RESEARCH STRATEGY
To determine the most popular services used by Baby Bomber to search for jobs, we took into consideration the research criteria. The two services provided were chosen based on multiple indications from credible sources, such as Forbes and industry-related sites like New Retirement, among others. We also made sure that both services provide options for part-time/seasonal jobs, for instance, we noticed that Lion Bridge, a very common part-time job provider is a regular announcer at Retirement Jobs. Considering the context, we excluded from our research services that are not specialized in seniors, like Craig List, Wonolo, Click Worker, Fiver, among others.