The Covid retirement boom has changed that dynamic. Many retirees haven’t been swayed to return due to pandemic-related health risks, according to research by the Kansas City Fed.
“We find that the current increase has mainly been driven by a decline in the number of retirees rejoining the labor force,” Jun Nie and Shu-Kuei X Yang, economists at the regional Fed bank, wrote in a report last year.
“Even if monthly transitions from retirement to employment return to their average pace in 2018–19, it will take more than two years to fully unwind the recent increase in the retirement share,” they wrote last August.
Their analysis was conducted before the arrival of the omicron variant, which has proved more contagious than previous waves and could further dissuade retirees from returning to the workforce.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.