Manufacturing often frets about the aging of its workforce. Some nimble companies revel in it.
The past decade has featured a long march of news about manufacturing’s labor shortage. At last count, some 800,000 manufacturing jobs were going unfilled in the United States.
Less well-known, but just as dire, is the underemployment of older workers. Did you know, for instance, that only half of Americans in their 50s are steadily employed? Beth Truesdale, an employment scholar at the W.E Upjohn Institute, calls this phenomenon the “disappearing workforce” because if you consider yourself no longer actively looking for a job, no matter the circumstance, you are ...