Older Workers in North Carolina’s Labor Market

North Carolina’s population is getting older, a trend with the potential to reshape our economy and our workforce.

In previous research, we highlighted the impact of aging on labor shortages in North Carolina: talent is likely to become even more scarce and employers may continue to face challenges filling open positions as more of our population reaches retirement age and exits the labor force. In this article, we focus on older workers themselves, using data from the North Carolina Common Follow-up System (CFS) to show how they are faring in our state’s labor market.

Employment Outcomes for Older Workers

Individuals aged 55 and above, as a group, are much less likely to be employed than their younger counterparts. This is largely the result of older workers voluntarily leaving the labor force to pursue retirement. But not everyone retires voluntarily; many want or need to continue working into their golden years, but are prevented from doing so due to health limitations, changing skill requirements, wage mismatches, or age discrimination by employers.

One way to better understand the employment challenges of older jobseekers is to track the outcomes of unemployment insurance (UI) benefit claimants—individuals who were engaged in the workforce and laid off due to no fault of their own and who are actively seeking a new job.

Older UI claimants in North Carolina have relatively low rates of re-employment. In 2017, 61% of jobseekers aged 55 and above were re-employed one quarter after their layoff date, compared to 68% of jobseekers aged 25-54 and 74% of those younger than 25 [Figure 1]. Even two years (eight quarters) after losing their job, a cumulative total of only 85% of older workers had found employment, compared to 92% of middle-aged and 96% of younger workers.

Figure 1

The good news for older workers is that labor market conditions in North Carolina remain favorable to jobseekers. Re-employment rates for older workers peaked during the COVID-19 recession, when the vast majority of layoffs were temporary [Figure 2]. More recently, 61% of older workers who lost their job in mid-2023 were re-employed one quarter following their layoff date. While re-employment rates aren’t currently as high as they were earlier in the pandemic, they remain consistent with the high rates of re-employment we saw during the tight labor market that preceded the COVID-19 recession, which itself represented the best job-finding environment in decades.

Figure 2

Here are two examples of efforts underway to address barriers to employment and help older North Carolinians access employment opportunities:

• The Senior Community Service Employment Program, administered by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Aging and Adult Services and their partner organizations
• Western North Carolina’s Experienced Workforce Initiative