Are you a baby-boomer, born between 1946 and 1964?
If you are starting to think about retirement, you are not alone. Some 76 million baby boomers will reach retirement age in the next 20 years! This will result in unprecedented labor shortages in the United States in the coming years. As an example, the U.S. will need 18 million new college degree holders between 2006 and 2012 to cover job growth and to replace retirees, but at current graduation rates, will be 6 million short. This subject is thoroughly covered in Ken Dychtwald’s new book, Workforce Crisis.
Check out the book on Amazon.com or read the book review that ran in Business Week

The engineering profession will be one of the hardest hit. In fact, we are already seeing labor shortages in several engineering disciplines. This is simply because there are more engineers retiring than there are new engineers graduating from college.

What does this mean for you?
It means that the labor shortage will create significantly higher demand for contract engineers after you retire or semi-retire.
You could take on a 6 to 9 month contract and earn almost as much as you did in a whole year in your direct job. This is because contracting pay rates are generally significantly higher than salary rates for direct employees. And health insurance should not be a concern since you will be covered under Medicare.

Concerned about age discrimination? Don’t even think of it. If anything, we are finding that when it comes to contract employment our clients prefer to hire more seasoned employees. That’s because they are generally thought of as having stronger work ethics, not to mention their wealth of experience and technical know-how.