Second Career Transition Jobs for Baby Boomers

I am working on an article about phased retirement.  One aspect of phased retirement is finding a transition job to get you from full-time employment to being completely retired. In some cases, that can mean simply decreasing your work level in your present job. In other cases, a transition job may require a career change altogether.

If you are a baby boomer preparing yourself for a possible second career, it helps to know where the best job opportunities are. I came across a list of job categories with data highly relevant to this issue. It was compiled from information published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The list identified those jobs that had these characteristics: (1) projections for high future growth rates; and (2) a relatively high percentage of age 55+ workers already in those fields.

The jobs that I have selected from the list had those characteristics plus manageable barriers to entry. For example, I did not select “veterinarian” from the BLS list because no one at our age is going to attend veterinary school to engage in a transition career!

Here are three of my selections for potential career transition jobs for baby boomers:

1.  Personal and Home Health Aide. The projected ten year growth in this job category is 50.7% and 23.4% of the workforce is already over age 55.  This also seems like an area where one could easily find part-time work without a lot of prior experience or training.

2. Personal Financial Advisor. This won’t be for everyone but if you have a business background in the financial services sector, it would not be overly difficult to obtain a suitable credential for providing personal financial advice to others. The projected growth in this category over ten years is 40.9%. 18.8% of existing workers in this field today are over 55.

3. Social and Community Service Manager. This job field would include working for a non-profit or for a government agency that provides services to the community. The over-55 crowd already has 24.4% of these jobs and the BLS predicts a 10-year growth rate of 24.6%. According to this government Partnership for Public Service website, there will be a high demand for federal workers in this area in the next few years. More information is available at that site and at USAJobs.

The bottom line is that if you are thinking about a second career or transition job for a phased retirement, it helps to identify where the demand is likely to be.

Are any of you planning for a phased retirement in a second career?

FREE UPDATES: If you enjoy what you read here, please consider subscribing to receive free updates automatically by RSS feed or by email. (I promise that your email address will not be shared or used for any other purpose.)

My Related Posts:

1. Retire to a Second Career