Here's a thought: I've seen a few different breakdowns of the recent spikes in unemployment, or at least unemployment in the G7 countries. Some have looked at unemployment by sector (white collar vs. blue collar, etc) others at income distribution, and so on. But what about by age bracket?
We have long been expecting labour market pressures to rise as the baby boomer generation starts to retire. Even as people of that generation tend to work an extra 5-10 years, that only delays, not reduces, the pressure. Now add the recession into the mix. There are two reasons to suspect that unemployment will fall heavily on the baby-boomer generation: more experienced workers are 1) more expensive, and 2) less easily re-trained than their younger counterparts.
If recent lay-offs are falling heavily on workers of the baby boomer generation, how will that impact medium- and long-term unemployment rates? Will we be seeing a prolonged spike in the unemployment rate as many baby boomers are forced out of work prematurely and are unable to return with ease?
Of course, many people may simply choose to retire early (assuming their savings didn't nose-dive into the concrete) and therefore wouldn't be counted in unemployment statistics, per se. But the social impact of fewer people in the labour force is effectively the same.
Mind you, this whole line of thinking is based on the assumption that unemployment actually will affect older workers more heavily. Someone find me a chart!
