The Age Curve: How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Storm

Where Have All the Managers Gone?

The labor shortage caused by the small number of Generation Xers trying to fill the footprint of the giant Boomer generation is not limited to skilled-labor jobs.

I spent the better part of a recent summer in Massachusetts consulting for a New England retailer with multiple stores in several states. One of the many problems we addressed was the difficulty finding and keeping good store managers. “They don’t want to work,” “You can’t get them to stay,” “They don’t understand loyalty and responsibility”—I had heard it all before, but these comments had always described entry-level positions, not management positions. Guess what? The population deficit has marched forward in age.

What am I talking about? Generation ...