Photo by Marjory Collins,
Garage mechanic near Newark, New Jersey,
1943, Library of Congress
I’m being too concerned with work lately. I picked up an issue of Time magazine (May 25, 2009) on “The Future of Work” that looked at what work might be like in ten years. (I actually hope to be retired by then, but…)
With the economy what it is, and unemployment at a 25‑year high, it’s hard to avoid hearing about work.
Here are Time’s links to their intelligent guesses about how your work world will change.
- The Way We’ll Work
- High Tech, High Touch, High Growth
- Training Managers to Behave
- The Search for the Next Perk
- We’re Getting Off the Ladder
- Why Boomers Can’t Quit
- Women Will Rule Business
- It Will Pay to Save the Planet
- When Gen X Runs the Show
- Yes, We’ll Still Make Stuff
- The Last Days of Cubicle Life
Number 6 bums me out. I’m pleased by numbers 7, 8. I am all for number 4.
Apparently, the 45-and-over age group favors base pay and health care as their 2 top benefitstop two. But the younger crew (18-to-34) chose base pay (we all want the bucks) and career advancement at the top. Makes sense if you are at the start of your career and you think you will live health and a long time. In fact, the young bucks didn’t even put “retirement benefits” in their top 10. Understandable, but short-sighted.
Speaking of retirement – the investment firm T. Rowe Price calculates that the oldest boomers will have to delay retirement by nearly nine years in order to recover what they lost in the market. Well, you can defer Social Security and try to save 25% of your salary, and then you should be able to reach retirement in 4 and a half. All because those stocks and real estate will still be yielding less into the future. I really don’t want to push retirement too far away.
Some people say that none of us should expect that we are “entitled” to a retirement. We should just expect to work until we can’t work. I disagree.
My own questions are: when will it be financially safe to do it, where should I go, and what can I do to keep my brain alive. For that last one, it’s not “work” in the way that work has been since I was 21 that I’m looking to do – but what is it?
