Next Five Years Could See Many Retiring

“Age and Retirement Benchmarks: Key Analytics That Drive Human Capital Management,” conducted by the ADP Research Institute, showed a low of 9% reaching retirement age in the hospitality industry to a high of 28% in public administration. Other industries included in the study were manufacturing, health care, education and retail. The study assumed an average retirement age of 61.

“While there is no guarantee that everyone who reaches the average retirement age will actually stop working, our research indicates several industries could be facing a significant loss of skilled talent over the next five years,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, senior director, market insights, at ADP Research Institute in Roseland, New Jersey. “Retirement data provides a critical glimpse into the future of a company’s work force.”

According to Yildirmaz, businesses will want to assess how their own work force compares with the averages and consider strategies for recruitment and training in order to replace the significant loss of knowledge, experience and company culture that can be expected.

The study also found the number of workers reaching retirement age in the next five years varies widely across industries. Public administration and health care services can expect large numbers of employees to leave the work force, given the fact that workers in these industries have average ages of 47 and 43, respectively. By contrast, the average age for hospitality workers is 34 and for retail it is 36.

The analysis in this report is based on aggregated, anonymous, real-world data from approximately 52,000 U.S.-based organizations composed of about 16 million active workers. The data is from the fourth quarter of 2012.

The full study can be found here.