After 24 years with Delta Air Lines, Nancy Stiefvater took an early-retirement package in the summer of 2001 but thought she still had "too much to offer."
Five years later, after a succession of temporary positions, she landed a dream job as a patient-services coordinator at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
"It’s an opportunity to work with people in a top-flight organization," said Stiefvater, 56.
She credits her volunteerism and working retirement with helping her to find something that satisfies her — and cushions her financially.
In the ranks of the "unretired," Stiefvater is in good company: Eighty percent of Baby Boomers, according to a recent AARP survey, plan to work at least part time after retiring from their careers.
Efforts are under way in Washington as well as in Corporate America to allow for phased retirements, given the unprecedented graying of the work force — as 78 million boomers, born from 1946 to 1964, march on.
According to Bureau of Labor Statistics projections, the number of U.S. workers 55 and older will grow 4.1 percent a year until 2014 — or at four times the rate for the labor force as a whole.
Source: Scripps Howard News Service, June 9, 2006