Retiring baby boomers may slow Mass. economy

BOSTON – The biggest hurdle to the state’s economic growth isn’t a slowing Chinese economy, collapsing oil prices, or gyrating financial markets. It’s your graying co-worker.

The long-predicted wave of baby boomer retirements – delayed by the recession of 2007-2009 – is beginning to hit companies in Massachusetts and across the nation, leaving employers scrambling to find replacements for the departing workers, according to a report by The Boston Globe last week.

The oldest of the generation that has dominated the workplace for decades turn 70 this year, and about one quarter of the nation’s 79 million boomers have passed the traditional retirement age of 65.

Massachusetts, which has an older workforce than the nation, is already feeling the effects, as industries from health care to manufacturing face worsening labor shortages. The state’s prime working-age population (24 to 55) is projected to shrink by more than 35,000 over the next three years and contract further throughout the next decade, according to the U.S. Census. •

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