Expert: Unemployment and the Aging Workforce
“Bad news for anyone who still believes in freedom from work at 55. The number of women of this age and older who reported having jobs rose by 14,000 from June and by 66,000 from a year earlier. The number of working men aged 55 and older increased by 69,000 from 2016.” (Maclean’s)
Fabian Lange, Associate Professor of Economics, McGill University
“In the long run, the most important question for sustaining the welfare state will be whether the rise in employment among older workers will be sufficiently large to offset the aging of the workforce. These numbers from the latest labor force survey release do look encouraging with year-on-year increases in employment among those 55 or older increasing at rates far above the growth rate of this population group. This is unambiguously good news for those concerned about the long-run viability of government programs such as health care or Old Age Security in the face of increasing longevity and population aging.”— Fabian Lange
He’s the Canada Research Chair in Labor and Personnel Economics. He’s also interested health and population economics. He won the 2016 John Rae Prize of the Canadian Economic Association which is awarded to the Canadian economist with the best research record during the last five years.
fabian.lange [at] mcgill.ca (English)