Demographic researchers have warned for decades about baby boomers leaving the job market, leaving an extreme amount of job vacancies for the GenX and millennials to try and replace. As the tidal wave of retiring baby boomers approaches, there will not be enough job seekers to fill their predecessor’s shoes. The same will be true for retiring business owners.
Economists were first predicting the tidal wave of baby boomer retirees to begin around 2007; right when the sub-prime lending bubble began its collapse; putting hundreds of thousands of Americans out of their homes. To add insult to injury, Bernie Madoff was exposed for his nearly 50-year Ponzi scheme in 2008. Americans who had saved up a nest egg in preparation for retirement suddenly had the rug pulled out from them, with no choice but to start over in a failing economy mere years before their traditional retirement date. Many couldn’t leave the job market if they wanted to. Now, economic reports reflect a recovering economy yielding positive returns, and baby boomers have not left the workforce in the droves once speculated; but the tipping point is inevitable. For the baby boomer business owners, the current economic uptick provides many compelling reasons to push off retirement, but some believe they are missing out on a historic opportunity to sell at premium rates.
