rebecca's pocket

» Retired, and Rehired to Sell. Home Depot and CVS are accomodating the ultimate in flextime for some retirees: summers in their home city, and winters in Florida. Why are they doing it? Because these folks would simply stop working if the company didn't accomodate them. "If we were not able to retain, train and hire and keep older people, we wouldn't have a business. The younger folks, there's just less of them. We need those older people to stay in the workforce, and people are living longer, healthier lives." Stephen M. Wing, director of government programs with CVS.

I can't help comparing this to the family benefits most employers offer to their employees who are responsible for family care (read: women), ie, very few. It was such a struggle for women to enter the workforce years ago that they really couldn't demand anything the men weren't already getting. And now it's such an economic necessity that they still don't have the leverage these retirees, many of whom don't strictly need the jobs, have.