Updated Census Report Highlights Idaho’s Aging Work Force

An update of the U.S. Census Bureau’s regular reports on the impact older workers have on the work force highlights how much Idaho’s labor force has aged in just a few years.

Data from the Local Employment Dynamics program, which merges labor market information with demographics, show that just over 16 percent of Idaho’s 2007 labor force was over 55. That was up almost two percentage points from 2004 and more than four percentage points from 2001.

Last year, 83,000 of Idaho’s 644,000 jobs were held by workers 55 and older. That compared to 79,000 of the 567,000 jobs in 2004.

In two sectors of the economy — education, which accounts for one in 12 jobs, and utilities — more than a quarter of the workers were 55 or older in 2007, and three others — government, transportation and warehousing and real estate — all had work forces where over a fifth of the people were 55 and older.

In 2001, only the utility sector, which provided less than 3,000 of Idaho’s 644,000 nonfarm jobs in 2007, had a work force where at least 20 percent of the people were at least 55.

“Changes in the size and composition of age groups may affect government program and policy choices and the options available to businesses,” the Census Bureau said in its 2004 report on older workers in Idaho, which was released in November. The information in this report was updated by the Idaho Department of Labor to reflect the situation in 2007.

“While the national recession has pushed Idaho’s unemployment rate to a 15-year high, the unrelenting movement of the state’s baby boomers toward retirement indicates that what is a surplus of workers today will become a shortage of workers in a decade or less,” Department of Labor Research Chief Bob Uhlenkott said.

People who continue working after the traditional retirement age of 65 have also increased, rising from 2.3 percent of the work force in 2001 to 2.7 percent in 2004 to 3.2 percent in 2007. But three of every four workers still retired at or before 65 in 2007 just as they had in 2001, and many who continue working do so just part time, based on their average wage typically dropping to between half and two-thirds of what it had been.

Geographically, the labor force in 16 of Idaho’s 44 counties was 55 or older in 2007. No county had over 20 percent in 2001, and just six reached 20 percent in 2004. Only Idaho’s two smallest counties — Clark and Camas — saw the percentage of the 55-and-older work force decline from 2001 to 2007.

Nearly half of the work force 55 and older was employed in just four sectors. Private education had over 14 percent, health care 12 percent, retail trade 11.5 percent and manufacturing just over 10 percent. Mining and utilities each had less than 1 percent of the older workers.

Thirteen of the 20 sectors saw percentages of 55-and-older workers increase at least two percentage points from 2004. Only mining posted a decline in the percentage of older workers.