Planning for the Future Workforce Leave Patterns Across Generations - Executive Summary

While most “Baby Boomers” will leave the workforce in the next decade, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects that by 2024, one in five American workers will be age 55 or older. The aging workforce will pose a challenge for employers’ human capital management strategies as well as their efforts to support their employees’ health and productivity. We use IBI’s disability benchmarking data to compare disability outcomes across generations. This includes:

• The proportion of workers who file STD claims, and for what reasons.
• How long claimants are off the job for an STD claim and at what cost in wage replacements and lost productivity (defined as the opportunity costs or foregone revenues or excess labor costs).
• How likely an STD claimant will enter the LTD system and how much LTD age replacements will add to the total costs of a disability incident.