The UK Office for National Statistics reports that more than half of the new jobs created in the year to February 2006 went to pensioners. Men aged 65 plus and women in the 60 plus bracket claimed 85,000 of the 147,000 new jobs. The seniors are winning the war for employment.

You don’t have such numbers for India; even organisations like Helpage India do not have the facilities to collect this data. Most people, however, believe that even as ageism (the discrimination against senior citizens) is coming down in the West, it is on the increase in India. “With thousands of new graduates being unleashed on the job market each year, what can you expect,” asks Madan Mitra, a headhunter from Mumbai. “They also have computer skills which an earlier generation is clueless about.”

While much is made of India’s growing labour force and how the country could be the reservoir for workers of the world, little attention is being given to the other side of the picture. Indian life expectancy has gone up from around 20 at the beginning of the 20th century to about 62 now. The grey population (defined as people above 60) has risen from 12 million to around 100 million. By 2025, it is expected to be 177 million, says one estimate. Another study puts the number of the elderly at 1 billion by 2020. India will continue to have more elderly people than any other country.

“This has begun impacting the work environment in a big way,” says Mitra. “For instance, in the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector, you already have some companies preferring to hire the aged. Today, they are looking at empty nesters ? mothers whose kids have grown up and moved out. Tomorrow, they’ll move further up the age ladder.”

India has had such traditions, of course. In business families, the owners seldom retire. There have been well-known battles with sons (themselves close to 60) for control of their empires.

In another sphere, politicians never retire. And they take their band of tame bureaucrats with them. Even if their services cannot be extended indefinitely, they are given a committee or two to head. Want more examples: doctors and lawyers never quit.

In rural India, retirement is unknown. The ploughman plods his weary way home until the bitter end. In the unorganised sectors in the cities too, the age limit depends on your ability to continue on the job.

The subject of seniors has several ramifications. What is important for the young jobseeker is to know the impact it can have on his career. First, companies will increasingly turn to seniors for run of the mill jobs. It’s not just the experience they bring to the table, they also come cheap.

Second, seniors will be preferred in sectors that have high turnover. There is a caveat, of course. Seniors can never make significant inroads into the IT industry; there are some skills people find difficult to learn. But, over time, they will make an impact on the BPO industry. The bottomline is that senior doesn’t mean senile.

Third, seniors are better at building relationships. The young tend to be more arrogant and abrupt. “If you are working at one end of a phone or on the Internet, people don’t know ? and are not really bothered ? about how old you are,” says Mitra.

On the other hand, any job that requires a lot of physical activity won’t be under attack by seniors. “Look carefully at the skill-sets you need to acquire,” concludes Mitra. “You don’t want to be competing with your retired dad for the same job.”

THE SILVER IMPERATIVE

Why senior citizens want to carry on working

Money: The chance to earn supplemental income is one of the reasons people want retirement jobs.

Love: Some people want retirement jobs because they just love to work. This is especially true for people whose work is creative.

Friends: To people who love to interact with others, retirement jobs may offer a vibrant social life and a built-in network of professional colleagues and potential friends.

Fear: Some people have devoted themselves so completely to work that they prefer to keep working as long as possible to delay any need to adjust to a different lifestyle.

Source: About.com