The Globe and Mail – Report On Business – Toronto – Friday, June 2, 2006.
ALEX DOBROTA AND TAVIA GRANT
When Ray Arsenault got his retirement papers from the Canadian Union of Public Employees eight years ago, the union manager was 53, and he knew he wanted to keep working.
"I left, but knowing full well I wasn't going to rock in a chair," he said. Now 60, Mr. Arsenault owns two consulting companies and employs 12 people part-time.
Mr. Arsenault is among a growing number of older people who are joining — or rejoining — the Canadian work force, Statistics Canada said yesterday in a study of labour trends in recent decades.
Last year, a record 54.8 per cent of 55- to 64-year-olds were at work. In the broader over-55 category, almost a third — 29.9 per cent — had jobs, the ninth annual increase since a low in 1996.
While some of the gains have been caused by an influx of baby boomers into those ages, the 126-page report said, the changes are welcome news in a country that is facing the biggest shortage of skilled labour in decades.
"More employers are starting to recognize that these are people who have all this experience and they're very loyal to the companies," said Barry Witkin, founder of the Prime50 employment service for older workers, a division of Drake International.
He estimates that about 60 per cent are working because they have to and 40 per cent because they want to. The question nowadays is, what is retirement age?
The concept is changing so much that Statistics Canada itself is having trouble keeping up.
"We're finding it incredibly difficult to define what retirement is," said Danielle Zietsma, a labour force economist at Statscan. "It's not one set age. You see so many people transitioning; they leave a job and within a few months we pick them up again in a different job."
The median age at which people currently stop working is 61, although a 2002 survey found almost one-fifth of working people don't plan to retire at all. A record number of workers are approaching retirement age, Statscan said yesterday.
From a strictly economic standpoint, it's good news that older people are contributing to growth, said CIBC World Markets senior economist Avery Shenfeld.
"People are starting to live longer, and they're healthier," he said, adding that in this context it makes sense to extend the retirement age.
Ontario and several other provinces have banned mandatory retirement at age 65, a move that might send even more seniors back to work.
George Coyle, publisher of the Ottawa-based Fifty-Five Plus Magazine, said retirees are increasingly returning to work because they like it.
"That age group, they don't necessarily have to work," Mr. Coyle said. Instead, many of them open a business or start a new career, he said, citing anecdotal evidence.
"I know a guy, he's 62, he makes custom golf clubs," he said. "He was a civil servant. So he got his nice indexed pension and decided to start off a little business. His passion was making custom-made golf clubs."
Other workers simply refuse to retire, Mr. Coyle noted. This is the case for a 72-year-old sales representative who worked for Mr. Coyle for about 20 years and who shuns retirement, the publisher said. "She likes what she does," Mr. Coyle said.
Ditto for the former union manager Mr. Arsenault.
Two years ago, the 60-year-old joined three other associates and started his second company, which sells unions a software capable of managing grievances. His first consulting firm is now reporting an average yearly income of $500,000.
And Mr. Arsenault is showing no signs of exhaustion. "We always have time to rest. We take life as it comes, enjoy the moment."
With files from reporter Virginia Galt