There’s never a good excuse for ageism, but it is especially troubling at a time when more and more older adults are choosing to stay in the workforce longer out of necessity or because they just like working.
There were 11 million Americans aged 65 and older working last year. That’s nearly one in five people (19%) in the entire U.S. labor force. And that percentage is expected to grow to one in four (25%) over the next few years, according to projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Approximately one in four workers in the U.S. labor force is over the age of 55.
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act goes even younger, protecting job seekers and employees who are 40 or older from workplace discrimination on the basis of age.
Despite that law, older adults say they still see ageism in the workplace.
One recent survey finds that 78% of Baby Boomers (people aged 60 to 78) believe their “age would be a contributing factor when being considered for a new position” and 65% believe their age puts them at a disadvantage.
The same survey finds that 53% of Baby Boomers say their age limits their career opportunities.
Older workers bring valuable skills such as problem-solving, critical thinking, self-management, interpersonal skills, leadership, and mentorship to the workplace. These workers also tend to have lengthier job tenures, offering reliability, loyalty, and stability.
However, many employers fail to recognize these benefits, depriving these workers of hiring and promotion opportunities, and their companies of a workers ready, willing, and able to fill millions of unfilled jobs.
As part of our content partnership with Scripps News, our news teams got together in June to present Age in America, a week-long examination of the challenges today’s workers face in the labor market and potential solutions.
Our coverage culminated with Breaking Barriers: Embracing Age in the Workforce, a one-hour TV roundtable discussion around how ageism undermines the invaluable contributions of older workers and what is being done to combat it.
We convened a panel featuring representatives from business, nonprofits, and government. The conversation was moderated by Scripps News Morning Rush anchor Rob Nelson and featured:
Watch Breaking Barriers: Embracing Age in the Workforce here.
Get more of our WorkingNation Age in America articles, videos, and podcasts here.
Get more of Scripps News’ Age in America coverage here.
This special is part of our WorkingNation Breaking Barriers series, which is made possible through funding provided by the Ares Charitable Foundation. Our first special, Breaking Barriers: Embracing Disabilities in the Workforce, won an Emmy® award.
© Copyright 2024 by Structural Unemployment, LLC dba WorkingNation
Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.
Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.
Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.
Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.
Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.
Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.