Express Employment Professionals is Saskatoon’s only locally owned and operated staffing and recruitment agency. It offers a full scope of staffing and recruitment solutions, from professional search and headhunting to temporary staffing. In Hanif's latest Saskatoon employment agency tip, he shared interesting data on employers not offering employees a semi-retirement option despite ongoing labour shortages.
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According to a survey from The Harris Poll commissioned by Express Employment Professionals, Canadian companies dealing with ongoing labour shortages overlook a significant source of labour – retired workers.
Only one quarter (25%) of Canadian companies offer semi-retirement, despite the growing number of employees retiring. Indeed, nearly one in four companies (23%) say retirements are one of the main reasons they expect increased employee turnover in 2023.
Of companies that offer semi-retirement, about one-third (33%) report an increase in the number of employees choosing semi-retirement over the past two years.
While keeping or bringing back retired workers might be seen as a temporary solution to labour shortages given age-related issues, more than half of the employees (53%) that have retired in the past two years have been under the age of 65, with more than a quarter (27%) retiring under the age of 60.
According to Niven Lee, an Express franchise owner in Delta, British Columbia, semi-retirement is a win-win situation for both the company and the retired employee.
“Offering semi-retirement can reduce the shortage of workers, but the main benefit to employers is the continued transfer of institutional knowledge and company culture,” said Lee. “For retired workers, it gives them a sense of purpose, allows them to keep up to date in their field, and gives them flexibility to enjoy their older years.”
KV Aulakh, an Express franchise owner in Barrie, Ontario, agrees that offering semi-retirement has significant benefits.
“One of the biggest drawbacks of retirement is the lack of routine that people feel initially, but semi-retirement allows older employees to slowly adjust to retirement by offering a routine with less hours, less stress, and more time away from work,” said Aulakh. “Semi-retirement also allows companies to hire someone who is more likely to show up to work. The benefits to bringing a retired employee back on a flexible basis are huge as that worker already has the required skills and familiarity with the processes, so they can continue to train the new workforce using the years of experience they have.”
Lee says that the number of employees retiring has increased in the past few years.
“Due to the aging and retiring of baby boomers, we have seen an increase in the proportion of employees retiring,” said Lee. “In addition, during the pandemic, we saw a growing number of older employees taking early retirement.”
However, both Lee and Aulakh say that inflationary pressures have caused many older workers to delay or come out of retirement. As a result, there is a growing source of labour that can help companies struggling to find qualified workers.
“The increased cost of living is making it difficult for people to live only on their pensions and, as a result, we definitely see an older age group continue to stay in workforce in our local market,” said Aulakh.
“As baby boomers continue to age and consider retirement, the labour shortage is only going to get worse,” said Bill Stoller, Express Employment International CEO. “Semi-retirement is one solution to allow experienced workers time to train their successors, ensuring a seamless knowledge transfer and business continuity.”
Express Employment Professionals allow clients to focus their efforts and time on being productive and doing what they do best – their business. Let their team focus on finding that right hire – that is what they do best!
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Survey Methodology
The Job Insights survey was conducted online within Canada by The Harris Poll on behalf of Express Employment Professionals between Dec. 1 and Dec. 15, 2022, among 506 Canadian hiring decision-makers (defined as adults ages 18+ in Canada who are employed full-time or self-employed, work at companies with more than one employee, and have full/significant involvement in hiring decisions at their company). Data were weighted where necessary by company size to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Respondents for this survey were selected from those who agreed to participate in our surveys. Harris online polls' sampling precision is measured using a Bayesian credible interval. This study's sample data is accurate to within + 4.6 percentage points using a 95% confidence level. This credible interval will be wider among subsets of the surveyed population of interest.
The omnibus survey was conducted online within Canada by The Harris Poll on behalf of Express Employment Professionals from Dec. 13-15, 2022, among 1,050 adults ages 18 and older. Data are weighted where necessary by age, gender, race/ethnicity, region, education, marital status, household size, household income and propensity to be online to bring them in line with their actual proportions in the population. Respondents for this survey were selected from those who agreed to participate in our surveys. Harris online polls' sampling precision is measured using a Bayesian credible interval. This study's sample data is accurate to within + 3.8 percentage points using a 95% confidence level.