Council Makes the Business Case for America’s Mature Workforce

Council on Competitiveness Senior Fellow Amy Kaslow is leading the Council's Tapping Mature Talent project. She is the director of the Workforce and the Economy Initiative.

Looking toward the challenges and future trends in the demand for human capital, the Council’s Workforce and Economy team is engaged in field research and in the policy arena on equipping American workers with skills they need to best compete in the global marketplace.   Among the Council’s projects is Tapping Mature Talent (TMT), a three-year focus on preparing American workers, from 55-years-old and beyond, to maximize their opportunities.

As a group, older Americans constitute one of the nation’s biggest pressure points on joblessness and job generation. Given demographic shifts, economic austerity, and financial realities, unprecedented numbers of mature Americans will remain or seek to re-enter the workforce; still others will be first-time job seekers. A Department of Labor Aging Worker Initiative (AMI) pilot project, TMT is intent on boosting the employability of aging workers in ten regions across the country to ultimately raise their earning power.  Mature workers have been hit the hardest in areas with declining industries.

Supported by a generous grant from the Atlantic Philanthropies, the Council is partnering with the Chicago-based Council on Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) to provide technical assistance and policy development on the local, regional, and national levels.  The Council and CAEL are on the ground, helping the regions to build effective partnerships between state and municipal workforce investment boards, non-profits, learning institutions and training centers, businesses, industry groups, and others with a stake in drawing on this deep pool of mature talent. As part of this initiative, the Council and CAEL are hosting three Learning Institutes for the AWI grantees.

Their first was on March 10-11, 2010 at the National Governors Association’s Hall of States in Washington, D.C. Led by Council and CAEL facilitators, grantees from each of the ten sites conveyed some of their concerns with Administration on Aging officials, and explored ways to sustain and broaden services to older workers.

With a goal toward sharing important findings and identifying next generation projects for federal and state policymakers, the Council will continue to document the strategies and lessons learned.  The Council has taken an important lead in the mature worker policy arena, and will work with CAEL to show employers and policy-makers, at all levels, the tremendous benefits to investing in the aging workforce. Concurrent with the TMT project, the Council is also developing co-generation and next-generation projects to help American employers benefit from the proven capabilities, productivity gains, and sound workplace mentoring by mature workers and to help secure the future for an ever-expanding portion of the American labor force.