While the Pittsburgh-area labor force still hasn’t recovered all of the jobs it lost due to COVID-19, one group has demonstrated notable resilience: local seniors aged 65 and older.
“In fact, it's one of the few age cohorts where we actually have more workers now than we had before COVID,” noted University of Pittsburgh economist Chris Briem. “And looking forward, our forecasts certainly show that the older workers will be a big part of any labor force growth here in the Pittsburgh region.”
Briem’s analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data shows that workers aged 65 and older already comprise the fastest-growing segment of the region’s adult workforce. They filled about 78,000 positions in the spring of 2022, according to the most recent age-level statistics — a 7% increase over the spring of 2019. With the exception of 35- to 44-year-olds, whose employment grew by 3% to 209,000 jobs during the same period, every other age group held fewer jobs in early 2022 than before the pandemic.
This pattern might come as a surprise, considering that the Federal Reserve blames “excess retirements” for much of the national labor shortage (and it marks a stark contrast from the protests that erupted in France last week in response to the government’s push to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 for most workers). But labor experts say the local trend is a leading indicator of the overall aging of the U.S. population. With adequate support, the experts say, seniors could play a critical role in limiting ongoing worker shortages.
In southwestern Pennsylvania, the number of older workers has increased for decades, largely due to population losses stemming from the steel industry’s decline. The rise in retirements associated with COVID-19 merely “dented” that upward trend, Briem said, and it’s unlikely to offset the overall aging of the U.S. workforce as the massive Baby Boom generation grows older.
Briem noted that seniors today tend to work and look for work longer than their predecessors because they stay healthier longer and have different financial needs.
Sense of purpose
Joann Asher, 79, has worked for five years as a part-time teacher’s assistant for the preschool at Elizabeth Seton Center in Brookline. Previously a regional retail manager, she grew tired of long work hours. But she never considered retiring.
“I like to work. I like to get up and have something to do and try to be useful,” Asher said.
On a sunny morning earlier this month, she beamed at a class of 3-year-olds as they filed through a narrow hallway on their way to recess. They chirped with excitement as they greeted Asher, letting her know that they were going to the playground.
“They make me laugh every day,” Asher said. “And it's nice to come into a room and everyone's happy to see you. They come over [and say,] ‘Hi Ms. Joann,’ and give you a little hug.”
While hiring remains a challenge at Seton Center, CEO Sister Barbara Ann Boss said part-time seniors like Asher help to fill shifts throughout the workday. About one-quarter of the nonprofit’s roughly 70 child care and senior services employees are 65 or older, Boss said.
“Many of them will come in and say, ‘I only want to work 20 hours.’ Fine — if we have a space or need for a 20-hour person, we’ll fit them in for those 20 hours,” Boss said. “And I'll tell you, they're always on time. And … if they're needed, they'll stay longer, no problem.”
Eighty years old herself, Boss shares Asher's reasons for remaining employed.
“I can't see myself not working and not contributing to society,” Boss said. “And I love children, … and I think there's a need. … It keeps me going. It really keeps me thinking, moving and growing in experience.”
Kathi Boyle, 76, said she also feels a sense of purpose in her work. Once the director of the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force, Boyle now serves as a part-time counselor for LGBTQ youth at the Hugh Lane Wellness Foundation in East Liberty.
“It's important for young queer kids to know that [there are] older gay people who survived … and how we did it and how we can still have full lives and feel good about who we are,” she said.
“I just have so much fun," she added. "I can't imagine being home all day – I will work as long as somebody will let me.”
‘I have to support myself’
Boyle said she doesn’t need the extra money. But some of her peers do.
Though she would prefer to retire, Karen Latzy of Cranberry Township said she has been looking for work for a year and a half. Social Security is her sole source of income now, and she said the $1,900 monthly payments don’t go far.
“I think people have the idea that when you're 69 years old, you should be retired on some beach somewhere,” she said. “I live by myself, so I have to support myself. So … I'm still looking. I'm still going [to] interviews.”
Latzy faces some barriers. First, she is awaiting a second knee surgery, so she can’t take work that requires her to be on her feet. Plus, she has only basic computer skills from her previous career in pharmaceutical sales. She said she was fired in 2021 from a customer service job because she struggled to navigate different computer programs.
That position was remote, and Latzy said it would have helped to have had someone in the room to train her.
Other seniors have had similar experiences, said Lisa Lenhart, a career consultant at Jewish Family and Community Services in Squirrel Hill. Before the pandemic, Lenhart said, some of her older clients held administrative office jobs that are now performed remotely.
“Having two years off … some of them will say, ‘I was fine … every time we made a shift [to new technology] while I was working in the office [and could get help]. But now, trying to do that from home … is more than I'm able to do,'" Lenhart said.
Her clients want to work because they need the pay after dropping out of the workforce temporarily to avoid contracting the coronavirus, Lenhart said.
Not enough younger workers
Allegheny County’s federally designated workforce-development board, Partner4Work, has gathered data that suggests more workers could be returning from retirement as the threat of COVID-19 has subsided. Between 2018 and 2022, the share of job applicants aged 65 and older who sought services through Partner4Work’s CareerLink system rose from 7% to 8.5%, according to the organization’s chief policy and research officer, Susie Puskar.
In a typical year, around 50,000 people use the service, she said. But as the economy reopened from the COVID shutdowns, she said, the figure peaked at 85,000. She said about 1,500 older workers usually request deeper assistance each year to improve skills such as digital literacy.
“We would recommend, with any employee-employer relationship, to make sure that older workers feel really supported and really included as part of the team,” Puskar said. “And those employers [that provide that assistance] are the ones that have less difficulty finding a workforce. The employers that haven't provided for those accommodations are the ones that are really struggling to find and retain employees.”
COVID forced a lot of businesses to loosen rules around where and when employees work. Those changes coincided with increased employment among people with disabilities,” noted Nicole Maestas, an associate professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School.
“Their employment rate has now kind of recovered [to] where it was prior to the pandemic and has actually surpassed [that level],” Maestas said. While the trend applies across age groups, it’s especially pertinent to workers aged 65 and older because they account for half of the people in the U.S. with disabilities.
“My hypothesis is that employer willingness to provide accommodations has played a role, and that often takes the form of telework,” Maestas said. “I think this has to be part of the reason why people with health problems have been able to recover their employment, and even grow their employment, coming out of the pandemic."
Maestas said she views the increase in older workers in Pittsburgh as “a really good sign for the economy” because it suggests that local employers are willing to adapt to an older workforce.
Businesses might not have a choice, said Phyllis Moen, a sociology professor at the University of Minnesota.
“There are no younger workers to be hired. We're seeing a decline in immigration," she said. "And all this means that the available workforce is an older workforce.”
Moen studies the aging labor pool and is part of the Life Course Center at Minnesota. She said robots and artificial intelligence could help to fill the workforce gap eventually. But for now, she said, older workers have shown they’re ready to step in while they can.
