65 and Still Clocking In

Revelio Labs discusses 65 and Still Clocking In

The share of workers under 25 starting new positions in the labor market has been declining steadily since the mid-2010s, falling from around 16% to single digits by 2025. Over the same period, with a marked acceleration after 2022, the share of workers aged 65 and older entering new roles has risen sharply. These opposing trends now define who is actually moving into new jobs in today’s labor market.

This shift is often framed as a demographic inevitability, but the timing suggests something more cyclical in nature. The renewed inflow of older workers coincides with higher interest rates, slower hiring, and a pullback in employer risk-taking. When growth is abundant, firms are more willing to hire for potential and train workers on the job. When growth slows, hiring does not disappear; it becomes more conservative. Experience, immediate productivity, and role readiness suddenly begin to matter more, making older workers comparatively attractive.

The change is visible in the average age of new hires. After rising gradually for years, the average age at position start increased sharply after 2022, reaching over 42 years old by 2025. This is the opposite of what typically happens late in an expansion, when tight labor markets pull younger workers into new roles and lower the average age of hires. Instead, the current cycle shows a labor market that remains active but is increasingly tilted toward experience.

A decomposition of the change in the average age makes clear that this is not a story about the economy reallocating toward occupations that skew older. Nearly the entire increase, for just over two years, comes from aging within occupations. Shifts between occupations contribute very little. In practice, this means that the same jobs are being filled by older workers than in the past, rather than new jobs emerging that inherently require older employees.

That pattern is mechanically consistent with two forces operating simultaneously: fewer young workers entering the labor market and fewer older workers exiting it. Entry-level hiring has weakened across much of the economy, while older workers have become more willing to stay in the labor force or return after retirement. Together, those forces raise the average age even if the underlying occupational composition barely changes.

Older workers are also not re-entering the labor market at random. Workers over 65 are disproportionately starting new roles in sales, strategy, community-facing, and teaching positions. Sales representatives stand out in particular, with workers over 65 overrepresented by more than ten percentage points relative to other age groups. These roles reward credibility, judgment, and networks. Such qualities compound over time and often offer flexible arrangements that make re-entry more appealing later in life.

Over 65 Sales Roles

(Click on image to enlarge)

Conclusion

Taken together, the data point to a labor market that is aging not simply because the population is getting older, but because economic conditions have changed. Slower growth, tighter financial conditions, and higher hiring thresholds have reshaped who gets opportunities and at what age.

Older workers are staying longer in the labor force or returning from retirement, while younger workers face higher barriers to entry. The result is a workforce that looks older, turns over less, and blurs the once-clear line between working life and retirement.

What It Means

Older workers don’t have enough money for retirement.

Younger workers don’t have the necessary skills or demand too much lifestyle preference over working.

And some jobs have labor shortages for a reason.

5,000 Job Openings at Ford

The Wall Street Journal reports The $160,000 Mechanic Job That Ford Can’t Fill

The automotive industry has faced a shortage of mechanics for decades, and Ford Chief Executive Jim Farley put the issue back in focus in November. Speaking on a podcast, Farley said Ford dealerships have 5,000 open jobs.

“We are in trouble in our country,” Farley said. “A bay with a lift and tools and no one to work in it.” Farley said the jobs can pay $120,000 a year, but they take five years to learn.

Only a small sliver of mechanics stick around long enough to get to that level of pay. The work is physically grueling. It is costly to start because mechanics need tens of thousands of dollars worth of tools. And the starting pay is closer to fast-food wages than to six figures. The 2024 median pay for a dealership mechanic or technician in the U.S. was $58,580, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The costly path to six figures

It was these sorts of promises that helped lure Hummel into the profession. Hummel got a two-year degree focused on automotive technology that cost about $30,000.

“They always advertised back then, you could make six figures,” he said. “As I was doing it, it was like, ‘This isn’t happening.’ It took a long time.”

Hummel’s automotive trade school helped him land his first job at a muffler shop in 2007. He said he earned less than $10 an hour. After a stint at another shop, he joined the Ford dealership in 2012.

Hummel’s path to a six-figure paycheck with benefits required him to put up his own money.

Like most dealership mechanics, he had to buy his own equipment, frequenting “tool trucks” to finance thousands of dollars in gear on payment plans up to $200 a week. These days he owns his own tools, like specialized torque wrenches—required by Ford—that cost up to $800 apiece.

Racing the clock

One of the hardest parts of the job—and the reason it can be so lucrative for skilled operators like Hummel—is racing the clock.

The way pay works in most dealership service departments is essentially a piecework system called “flat rate.” Technicians are paid a fixed amount per job, regardless of how long the work actually takes. Making six figures requires working fast, so you can bill more hours than you actually work.

Rich Klaben, president of Klaben Auto Group, which owns Klaben Ford, said the flat-rate pay system is the best way to reward fast workers like Hummel. “We need productivity. If we get productivity, we can pay,” he said.

Consumers are paying, regardless. The costs of car maintenance and repairs have been rising faster than inflation—up 6.9% in November from a year earlier, according to data released in December. But wages aren’t keeping up. While car-repair costs rose 59% from 2014 to 2024, mechanic wages grew by 34% over the same period.

Ford said senior master technicians like Hummel average about $67,000 after five years on the job, while only those “at the pinnacle of the profession” earn $120,000 or more. The company said it is working to address the mechanic shortage. Ford operates 33 technician training centers around the U.S. and offers scholarships to help with tuition and tools, among other initiatives.

Jim Eisenberger, 37, was another transmission-changing expert who earned six figures at Klaben Ford. But the physical wear got to him.

Eisenberger, who is married with two children, had a pair of hernias and put off surgery as long as he could. If he was out, he wouldn’t earn a paycheck.

But after finally getting the surgery, he said he still felt creeping discomfort in his midsection. “I still pushed, and I tried to turn as many hours as I could, but it was never the same,” he said. He left the job a year ago to pursue a startup producing digital guides for mechanics.

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