Shortage of workers may stretch many employers

American businesses are largely unprepared for a seismic workforce change that will get underway in the coming decade, as tens of millions of baby boomers retire and far fewer new employees arrive to take their place.

That's the conclusion of a study being released today by Boston College's Center on Aging & Work. The report, which surveyed 578 companies and other organizations, finds that only 12 percent have planned in-depth and more than a quarter have failed to plan at all for the changing demographics projected to create a worker shortage.

While shortages already have begun to appear in certain sectors, such as healthcare and education, the problem will be felt across most professions around 2012 and intensify afterward as employees born after World War II exit the labor force, the study suggests.

"Some employers look around and say, 'I don't see a problem for us,' " said Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes, codirector of the Center on Aging & Work, which was formed in 2005 with a $3 million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. "It may be because it's too early, or they're overlooking pockets within their companies."

The looming employee shortage has been identified in past studies by other groups, but the BC report breaks ground by examining how it will affect businesses, not workers or public policy .

Drawing on its employer survey, it finds that only 37 percent of enterprises have crafted strategies to retain late-career workers past the traditional retirement age despite what employers characterize as their "high levels of skills and strong professional and client networks," work ethic, and low turnover.

Many employers, in fact, continue to pare their payrolls to cut costs and boost profits .

"Companies are short-sighted," said John A. Challenger, the chief executive of the Chicago consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., which specializes in employee outplacement services. "They don't think about their workforce 10 years from now because the whole workforce will turn over in that time. They're only concerned about the next year because they're judged by their short-term results."

Some professions will be squeezed disproportionately . The number of nurses is projected to shrink, for example, just as the demand for healthcare increases with an aging population.

In the BC study, 60 percent of employers surveyed report that recruiting competent workers already is a significant challenge. Forty percent, meanwhile, say that management skills are in short supply in their organizations.

Middle-aged workers, who fill the management ranks at most enterprises, are projected to be the scarcest commodity in coming years. The number of employees ages 45 to 54 is projected to drop 10 percent between 2002 and 2012, according to the report.

Regions with slower population growth could be harder hit by the impending crunch. "We know it's coming because of the age curve," said Jim Klocke, executive vice president at the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. "But companies are going to have to intensify their recruitment as baby boomers retire and they're going to have to reorganize their work flow so they can do the same thing with fewer people."

Pitt-Catsouphes, lead author of the BC study, said that many company representatives told her at a conference two weeks ago that 30 to 40 percent of their employees could retire in the next 10 years.

Despite that, only a minority of firms have begun pilot programs to encourage older workers to delay retirement, offering incentives like telecommuting, flexible work hours, and training in new technologies and work processes.

Those that have calculated the retirement rates of their employees and taken steps to retain older workers and recruit college graduates more aggressively will have a leg up, Pitt-Catsouphes said.

"Attitudes are changing around how we think about the value older workers can add, how we think about flexible time, and how we think about retirement," she said.

Challenger said increasing numbers of employees over 55, and even over 65, will become "free agents," working for three to five years. "Companies need to create workplaces that are more amenable to the needs of older workers," he said.

Robert Weisman can be reached at weisman@globe.com.