Janice Carnicelli can help you pick out the right hammer, the best screw driver or the most effective sander, all while her hair is in a near-perfect up-do and her large circular earrings shine brightly.

After 18 years as an employee of Sears in the Fingerlakes Mall, the 68-year-old tool consultant isn't ready to hang up her apron and name tag just yet.

Retirement won't come, Carnicelli predicts, until age 71.

Though recent U.S. Census Bureau statistics show that Americans are not working as late in life as they once did, Carnicelli is by no means alone in her Golden Years workforce pursuits.

And as the 75 million baby boomers age, economists and sociologists are predicting that more older adults will stay in the labor force, either by choice or for financial reasons.

“There are a number of factors that suggest the retirement landscape is changing fairly dramatically,” says Andrew Eschtruth, associate director for external relations for the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

At the local level, many older residents are already working into their late 60s or 70s. Some have continued to put in a 40- or 50-hour week, while others are employed part-time or have taken up a completely new career.

Dan Brown, 78, a founding partner of Dermody, Burke & Brown, a financial services firm in Auburn, still works during tax season.

“I'd like to work as long as I can hold a pencil,” Brown says. “I want to try and keep the gray matter moving a little bit.”

A matter of necessity

Many older workers these days depend on their jobs as a primary source of income - or at least as an important supplement.

Though Carnicelli likes getting out of the house and enjoys meeting people, her employment isn't strictly for social reasons. She needs the money to support herself and the son and two grandchildren with whom she lives.

She also has a loan to pay off, and when that's finished, she'll likely retire from her position at Sears.

“I think I will miss being here,” Carnicelli says. “I do it, but I don't mind doing it.”

Norene Bartkowiak, 67, of Cato, has a similar attitude about her employment at Cayuga Community College. For her, work is something that gives you motivation for the day and forces you to get out of the house and move around.

“My mom had a saying - use it or lose it - and boy, was she correct,” she says.

At age 46, Bartkowiak returned to the labor force to help out with expenses for her six children. She ended up working as a clerk at a hardware store for more than 14 years, during which time her husband's company went bankrupt.

When her employer later went out of business, Bartkowiak was 62, but she never thought of retiring, even with the rheumatoid arthritis that affects nearly every joint in her body.

Thanks to Experience Works, a provider of training and employment services for older individuals, she was able to get a job at the college, where she now works the information desk 4 to 9 p.m. four days a week.

Bartkowiak says that her earnings help to pay “exorbitant expenses” - like heat and a surgery that cost her $1,000 out of pocket.

“The pay is supplementary most of the time and necessary some of the time because life happens,” she says.

According to Robert Fortier, Cayuga County's Experience Works regional field operations coordinator, older people often return to work after the death of a spouse or some other unexpected factor.

“They can't make ends meet, so what they have to do is have some other way of making money,” says Fortier, who every year assists 160 low-income people age 55 and older in their job search.

Monster.com Age Issues Expert Linda Wiener says that thanks to a lack of savings, downsizing, student debt and decreased pensions, boomers age 50 to 65 are not as financially prepared for retirement as the younger boomers.

“They'll continue working not only for self-identification but also primarily for income protection,” says Wiener, who worked for AARP for 15 years and now runs a training and consulting company. “(They) want to be engaged, but primarily the thing is they have to.”

Those now 40 to 50 years old will also continue to work, but not so much for want of income as for a desire to stay active, Wiener adds, and they'll likely switch careers and try something new.

Early retirement, she notes, is a thing of the past.

According to a recent National Institute on Aging and U.S. Census Bureau report, however, Americans are leaving the workforce earlier than they did 50 years ago. Female participation for workers 65 and over has hovered around the 10 percent mark since 1950, the report says, but fewer than one in five men 65 and over are in the workforce today, compared with close to half of men ages 65 and older in 1950.

Wiener believes the data is skewed, particularly because of the dates and events that occurred in the marketplace during certain time periods. For example, labor market participation among older workers was down from 2000 to 2004 because they were the first ones forced out when the dot-com companies failed.

Since then, participation among older workers has increased because of both greater employer demand and receptivity and more economic need, Wiener says.

Eschtruth, of the Center for Retirement Research, says that retirement age today averages 63 for men and 62 for women.

Those numbers should increase somewhat as baby boomers start looking at the possibility of retirement, Eschtruth predicts. Disappearing pension funds, increasing health care costs and more expensive tastes, combined with some individuals' lack of savings savvy and longer life expectancies, could significantly affect how people look at their prospects for retirement.

It's not that people have to work into their 80s, Eschtruth adds. Rather, putting in an extra two to four years may make all the difference.

Canada is already seeing such increases.

The number of workers 55 and older in the workforce rose by 6.2 percent last year, according to Statistics Canada, that country's central statistical agency.

Ted Sarenski, a certified financial planner with Dermody, Burke & Brown in Auburn, believes that an increasing number of baby boomers will realize they must stay in the workforce longer not just to pay the routine bills but also to continue living the lifestyle to which they have grown accustomed. Many will have to confront a choice of whether to cut back on their disposable income expenses (i.e. not going out to eat as much or on vacations) or to keep working.

“There has been some hard decisions made,” Sarenski recalls. “We find most folks are choosing no, I don't want to do that ... I would rather work longer, if that's what you're telling me I need to do to keep that lifestyle.”

Paul Cowley, 63, of Skaneateles, understands where Sarenski is coming from. The president of Cowley Associates, an advertising and public relations firm in Syracuse, has put two children through college and proudly admits that these next years are for him and his wife to enjoy, whether it be vacationing in Europe or spending a few weeks at their home in Florida.

But if he were to retire now, they would have to scale back on their activities.

As you go along in life, you have this idea that it will all pay off, Cowley says, but “you don't necessarily accumulate this mass retirement package, if you will. It costs so much to live these days.”

And though a partial retirement is on the horizon for Cowley, who looks forward to a time when he can be even more flexible with his schedule and predicts working at Cowley Associates another five to 10 years, he's not envisioning the stereotypical Floridian golf-all-day, eat-dinner-at-3-p.m. lifestyle.

“I see what happens to people when they do that, and I don't like what I see,” Cowley says.

“You can only go to so many parties,” he says. “It's a very shallow life, in my opinion.”

Instead, he'd like to go the partial retirement route of teaching art at Syracuse University (which he does now) and wants to paint and do his own shows.

Valued workers

With the forthcoming retirement of the baby boomer generation, experienced individuals like Cowley will soon be in even greater demand.

As the 75 million adults born between 1946 and 1964 reach retirement age in the coming years, Social Security will be flooded - and the workforce will be left without a large sector of workers with institutional knowledge.

Many industries will be looking for older workers who have experience and loyalty to the company, says Ted Herrling, director of the Cayuga County Employment and Training Department and the Cayuga Works Career Center.

Some industries are evaluating ways to ensure older workers stay in the labor force, and AARP has even formed the Alliance for an Experienced Workforce to help employers recruit, retain and utilize individuals 50 and older.

“Employers are looking for ready-to-work people,” Herrling adds.

That doesn't mean that ageism and a bias toward older workers is no longer an issue, says Michelle White, regional communications specialist with Experience Works. Employers may think older workers are slower, that there will be more workman's compensation claims because they're more likely to get hurt or that they will take more sick days.

Older workers can also be more expensive because of health care costs, and not all companies offer part-time employment, which White says is often preferred by senior workers because of flexibility issues.

But, she adds, older workers are actually very reliable.

“They come from a more mature state of mind,” White says. “They know what it is to be in the workforce, and I think it shows. They're very committed to what (they do).”

Higher health care costs can also be offset because there is not as much turnover with older workers, adds Wiener.

Fortier has helped to find employment for seniors even into their late 80s. He believes that the idea that older workers are slow or don't learn quickly is a myth; much of the time, they are more dependable than young people.

“They're on time,” Fortier says. “They don't take off every Monday because they've had a drunken party over the weekend.”

Shirley Gillmore, of Montezuma, just celebrated what she likes to call her second 35th birthday. She is currently looking for a permanent part-time position that will give her some extra cash.

Now earning minimum wage through her Experience Works training at Catholic Charities, Gillmore could get by without holding down a job, as she receives Social Security benefits from her late husband, who 28 years ago was killed in a car accident that also took the lives of two other relatives and permanently injured Gillmore. But she's been working since high school and likes to be around people.

She has never experienced any overt bias against her because she's a senior citizen (besides, she proudly says, she looks much younger than 70), but says that being older can complicate things.

“I am trying to get back into it, but at my age and with the job situation, it's very, very, very hard,” Gillmore says. “They're not supposed to ask your age anymore, but they know if you've been working all these years, they can figure out how old you are.”

Staff writer Linda Ober can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 237 or linda.ober@lee.net