Civic Ventures released a report last year highlighting the innovative work certain states are doing around the U.S. to tap into the growing number of Baby Boomers interested in second careers. Civic Ventures focuses on enabling careers in fields that make a positive contribution to society, such as teaching and health care. The report looks at efforts in Arizona, California, Maryland, Massachusetts and New York to help older workers find meaningful work and to volunteer their time. I had a chance to talk about Civic Ventures’ work in this area recently with Stefanie Weiss, the organization’s vice president for communications. Here’s an edited video of our conversation.

You can download a PDF of the Civic Ventures report on state innovation here.

Strategy consultants Kevin and Shawn Coyne offer a provocative take on the Boomer retirement hype industry in an article and video interview at BusinessWeek.com. After combing through the numbers, they point out that 78 million Boomers won’t all be retiring at once, and that what some have called a tsunami really will look more like a rolling wave. Upshot: the market for retirement services looks less like a 78 million-person opportunity, and something more like 29 million. As a result, they argue, the growth rate in retired individuals will be much lower than thought, with financial services companies the big losers as they battle for market share to justify their huge investments in this market.

The Coynes argument rests of a few key assertions:

• The actual number of “true retirees,” which excludes those who never worked in the first place, will reach only 46 million in 2017.
• More Americans will choose to work beyond the traditional retirement age of 65
• The growth assumption is less than 3%, and the more likely growth rate is under 1%

My take: It’s always useful to cut through the hype about the Boomer market, where generalizations tend to be taken as fact. But the Coynes’ analysis uses too rigid a definition of “retiree.” The real demographic issue isn’t who has retired from a job and who has not –it’s about the undeniable age tsunami. The challenges of retirement security and health care issues are real and will be defining questions for business and government in the years ahead.

The coming wave of Boomer retirements will be the top workforce issue during the coming generation, according to a new survey of senior executives. A Robert Half International survey found 42 percent of senior execs citing the retirement wave as the highest-impact trend, followed by global business interactions (31 percent), outsourcing (11 percent) and remote work arrangements (5 percent). “The looming retirement of baby boomers has captured the attention of business leaders who are concerned about retaining the expertise of their most tenured employees,” said Max Messmer, chairman and CEO of Robert Half International. Messmer went on to note that many Boomers will delay retirement or seek out flexible work arrangements, blunting the expected impact.

AARP released it’s list of “Best Employers for Workers over 50″ list for 2007. Although S.C. Johnson topped the list of 50, what caught my eye is the dominance of health care and non-profits in the annual ranking. Companies apply to be listed, and AARP judges the applicants based on a range of human resources practices and policies, including recruiting practices, training, education, career development opportunities and flexible work arrangements. Retiree and health benefits are also considered. It’s interesting to see that business is under-represented here compared with other sectors of the economy. I threw the list on a spreadsheet and did a quick analysis; 52 percent of organizations listed are in the health sector; about a third were publicly-held or private companies like S.C. Johnson.

Business awareness of attracting and retaining older workers does seem to be on the rise; just 22 percent of last year’s AARP listees were public or private companies.

An increasing number of executives are changing their careers at mid-life or later, a Korn/Ferry International survey finds. The survey on “re-careering” polled 273 Korn/Ferry consultants on the trends they see in the employment market. Asked if they have seen an increase in the number of executives who are “re-careering,” 42 percent of the firm’s consultants replied “absolutely” and 20 percent replied that they are seeming “somewhat” of a trend in this direction. And 63 percent said they perceive more opportunities opening up for career shifters.

Korn/Ferry’s consultants cited a range of motivations for career changes, including boredom with retirement, sense of productivity, the need for intellectual challenge and insufficient retirement funds. Smaller numbers cited as motivating factors the need for social interaction, a need for daily structure after retirement or increased life expectancy.

While big companies keep shedding older workers, one-fifth of small businesses report that their workers are staying on the job past age 65, with two thirds saying employees are staying on because they want to keep working. The other third can’t afford to retire. The National Association of Professional Employer Organizations (NAPEO) surveyed 400 small companies to learn how looming Baby Boomer retirements are being handled. “Either way, these older employees represent both an opportunity, thanks to their valuable experience, and a huge challenge, because small businesses have to get ready now for the graying work force,” said Milan P. Yager, executive vice president of NAPEO. The full survey results are here.