With baby boomers retiring at a rapid rate, a smaller replacement population, and uncertainties of Covid 19, the Michigan labor market remains in uncertain and choppy waters. That assessment comes from the monthly labor market information study of Kinexus Group, the parent organization of Youth Solutions.
Kinexus Vice President of Public Relations and Government Affairs, Al Pscholka, reported that, nationally, three million baby boomers are now retiring every year, up a million people from pre-pandemic levels. Also, the baby boomer generation typically came from a family of four children, while the boomers had less than two children per household, leaving Michigan and most of the country with a labor shortage. In Michigan, the study showed that 200,000 less people are working in Michigan than prior to the pandemic. In December, the labor department reported that the U.S. has 11 million jobs open and 7 million people on unemployment.
One of the solutions discussed in the Kinexus report was having employers utilize non-traditional means of hiring and increasing the number of school-business partnerships in both the short and long term. For more information on the report, go to www.kinexus.org.