Labor market blooming this spring

When employees retire from Butler Manufacturing's Antiville, Lebanon County, factory, that doesn't always mean they stop working there entirely, says plant manager Wally Stephenson.

Since the late 1980s, but especially over the past 10 years, more than half of the retirees chose to return to

Stephenson said the idea started when several retirees came back to the plant to visit with former co-workers and expressed a desire to work again.

"As other people retired, they knew some people who came back, so they came back too." Some return to the shop floor, others to the offices.

The retirees' hours vary, Stephenson said. Some return to fill in when full-time

workers take vacations, others help with taking inventory. Whatever their job is, it's definitely not busy work, Stephenson said. One employee comes in on a regular schedule of about two or three days each week; the remaining retirees are called in on an asneeded basis.

Returning retirees to work is not as common at Butler's other factories, Stephenson said, calling it "kind of an Annville thing."

There are more and more companies looking at phased retirement programs," said Stephenson. "For employers, it brings qualified, capable people right off the bat."

Other employment experts agree that many companies are choosing to put their retired employees back into the workplace.

Russ Sellers, president of RLS Consulting, Swatara Township, said about five or six years ago, AMP Inc. sent letters to its retirees, giving them the opportunity to work again.

Like Butler, other companies have used phased retirements, so the transition is easier on new employees who are taking their place.

Sellers sees phased retirements as a costeffective alternative to training for many organizations.

Carol Hess, director of work-force strategies with Kuntz Lesher Siegrist & Martini, Manor Township, Lancaster County, has also seen the phenomenon before, at Armstrong World Industries Inc., Manor Township. "I'm sure other companies are doing it," Hess said. "There's such a shortage of people."

The Senior Citizens' Freedom to Work Act of 2000, also known as the Earnings Limit Repeal, was first introduced March 1 of last year.

This year, after first being passed in the House and Senate, the act was sent to President Clinton March 29. The act would repeal the limits in the Social Security Act on the amount of outside income which retirement-age workers are allowed to earn without losing Social Security benefits. The act would be retroactive to Jan. 1.

Sellers said employers should be the ones to shoulder the burden of ensuring that the retirees don't work too many hours and lose their Social Security benefits.