Atlantic Canada’s workforce getting older
Demographic changes mean more older people are working
HALIFAX - The number of working people who are 55 years old and over has increased substantially in Atlantic Canada over the last 20 years.
“The quality of the data is high … It’s quite reliable,” said Bertrand Ouellet-Léveillé, an analyst with Statistics Canada.
The large number of baby boomers approaching their retirement years is driving up the numbers of working older people, the analyst said in an interview. “That’s a big demographic group,” he said.
Older people now have more tendency to work. “Not only there are more older people in the population … but the proportion of those who are 55 years old and over that are working has also increased dramatically,” Ouellet-Léveillé said.
The study shows that 32 per cent of Nova Scotian who are 55 years old and over are now working compared to only 19 per cent of them in 2000. Around 108,000 of them are working compared to only 40,000 in 2000, according to estimates from Statistics Canada.
“It’s quite a big increase,” the analyst said. “Almost the third of (older people) are working now compared to a fifth 20 years ago.”
The pattern is similar in the rest of the country.
In Newfoundland, the rate has climbed from only 14 per cent in 2000 to 27 per cent now.
In New Brunswick, 32 per cent of people 55 years old and over now work compared to 20 per cent of them in 2000.
In Prince Edward Island, the percentage increased from 21 per cent in 2000 to 37 per cent.
“We have seen the same (pattern) across the Atlantic provinces and across the country,” the analyst said. In Ontario, 37 per cent of older people are working compared to 25 per cent of them in 2000.
Most of the increase in the numbers of older workers happened between 2000 and 2010. Since then the numbers are relatively flat, Ouellet-Léveillé said.
The demographic change is the main cause of the aging workforce. “It’s just the weight of the big group of people that were born between 1945 and 1965,” he said.
Those who entered the labour market late because they needed to study more or do more training will have to work more years to accumulate the required capital to be able to retire, the analyst said. Because of that “people are potentially retiring a little bit later.”
Other things may play a role in why more people are working past age 55.
“We have longer life range on average, and people are staying healthy, mostly thanks to advances in medicine,” said Karen Foster, an associate professor of sociology at Dalhousie University. “The proportion of people who have an employersponsored pension is decreasing, … people need to keep working to fund their retirement.”
This reality changes the jobs that are available for younger workers, said Foster.
The number of working younger people now is lower than what it was in the 1980s, according to StatCan.
“You can’t say that older people are stealing the jobs from younger people because older people are occupying senior positions that younger people wouldn’t take anyway,” said Foster. “But if a company or an employer has a certain budget that they have to stick within and if their payroll is more top heavy with more senior people, they don’t have many resources to spend on new hires.”
More young people are struggling to get a full-time job and others are stuck and can’t climb the career ladder because older people keep working, and this is not an efficient use of workforce, she added. “You have a lot of people who are under-employed.” The mass retirement that is likely to happen in a few years is going to make employers in several industries face labour shortages. People are going to choose the best jobs in popular venues and that pay well, the Dal professor said.
The problem in a lot of Canadian communities is that young people are getting higher education and becoming over-qualified for the processing and packing jobs, so they leave home to find employment.
Immigration is one way to deal with this situation, she said.
“The best thing that could happen would be if we have very clear pathways for people to come on temporary work permits
MASS RETIREMENT COMING
“We have longer life range on average, and people are staying healthy, mostly thanks to advances in medicine. The proportion of people who have an employer-sponsored pension is decreasing, … people need to keep working to fund their retirement.”
Karen Foster
Associate professor of sociology at Dalhousie University