Up to 18% of U.S. Workers Expected to Retire Within 5 Years

The Baby Boomers are about to retire en mass. A new report on age and retirement benchmarks in the U.S. shows that as much as 18% of the U.S. workforce could retire within the next five years.

That’s according to data from the ADP Research Institute, which is a part of global payroll and human resources provider ADP. The study assumes an average retirement age of 61 years.

The six industries studied ranged from a low of 9% reaching retirement age in the hospitality industry to a high of 28% in public administration. Other industries included in the study were manufacturing, healthcare, education and retail.

“While there is no guarantee that everyone who reaches the average retirement age will actually stop working, our research indicates several industries could be facing a significant loss of skilled talent over the next five years,” stated Ahu Yildirmaz, Sr. Director – Market Insights at the ADP Research Institute. “Retirement data provides a critical glimpse into the future of a company’s workforce. Businesses will want to assess how their own workforces compare to the averages and consider strategies for recruitment and training in order to replace the significant loss of knowledge, experience and company culture that can be expected.”

The number of workers reaching retirement age in the next five years varies widely across industries. Public administration and healthcare services can expect large numbers of employees to leave the workforce, given the fact that workers in these industries have average age of 47 and 43 respectively. By contrast the average age for hospitality workers is 34 and for retail 36.

“Benchmarks achieved through in-depth research give HCM professionals a new ability to tap the full talent pool and manage their most valuable asset — people,” according to Don Weinstein, Senior Vice President of Product Management at ADP. “The power of “big data” is a growing force in driving strategic business decisions.”

The analysis in this report is based on aggregated, anonymous, real-world data from approximately 52,000 U.S.-based organizations comprised of about 16 million active workers. The data is from the fourth quarter of 2012. The full study, entitled Age and Retirement Benchmarks: Key Analytics that Drive Human Capital Management, can be found at http://www.adp.com/research-trends.

ADP has more than $11 billion in revenues and more than 60 years of experience, with 60,000 employees serving approximately 620,000 clients in more than 125 countries.