Here’s an interesting bit of information from this past weekend.

“More employers are catching on to the benefits of hiring older workers. They recognize the fact that mature workers bring good experience and skills to the workplace,” said Deborah Russell, Director of Workforce Issues for AARP in Washington.

First things first, clearly, it’s not surprising to hear this type of thing from a political organization whose very existence is to champion any cause that is important to the Baby Boomer population. So, we’ll take this “expert” report with a grain of salt.

Even so, how much truth is there to this (if any)?

This report from MarketWatch seems to suggest that there will be enormous opportunity for the over 50 crowd in the Government sector since the federal government is bracing for over half a million retirements.

Those vacancies must be filled, but the goal is to fill them with mature and experienced professionals even if those people are coming from completely different industries in the private sector.

Personally, I think the truth (and I sincerely hope that I’m wrong) may be closer to the harsh reality that employers are looking at this class of workers as the “new cheap labor” and therefore a group for them to exploit.

Studies suggest that nearly 70% of these individuals plan to work past the traditional retirement age of 65 to counter insufficient personal savings and rising costs of health care. Bottom line, they need to continue working (perhaps even exploring entirely new career paths) even if they want to retire because they have to find a way to pay the bills and put food on the table.

What does that mean exactly? Well, that they might be willing to take on lower paying jobs for the “benefits” of a flexible schedule and health insurance.

The interesting question surrounding this issue will be whether or not Millennials aren’t taking these positions because of who they are (we’ve all read various pieces on the mind of the Millennial) or because they view them as being crappy jobs.

If it’s the latter, perhaps Baby Boomers should thumb their noses at these “opportunities” and demand a little more from employers as well. I mean, if they have the right level of experience and maturity needed, they’ve certainly earned that right.

And if that doesn’t work they can always push the AARP to do their job and do the lobbying for them.