The numbers game begins to shift.(BENEFITS)

Beginning later in this decade, the retirement of the baby boomer generation may usher in a worker shortage. How employers prepare for and respond to it may have a lot to do with their future success.

"The first baby boomers will start retiring about 2008," says Bill Chafetz, principal with Deloitte Consulting. "There's really a looming skills gap. It's a numbers game, but it's also a quality game," he says.

The phenomenon is a product of the expected retirements and the decrease in the growth of the labor force.

"The growth rate was 1.7 percent b