Economic Developers Are Retiring: How to Address this Urgent Issue
November 25, 2024
2024 is a big year for retirement with an average of 11,000 Americans turning 65 each day. The “silver tsunami” is impacting all industries, including economic development. A simple Google search for “economic developer retiring” results in pages upon pages of announcements. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough trained economic developers to replace them and many organizations have not created a succession plan that accounts for training someone new to the industry.
The Brookings Institute put an exclamation point on this issue in their report on the infrastructure industry as a whole. In “Seizing the U.S. Infrastructure Opportunity: Investing in Current and Future Workers” Joseph Kane wrote, "From 2021 to 2031, projections show 1.7 million infrastructure workers (12.2%) leaving their jobs each year on average, leading to huge replacement needs …. How can leaders expand the future infrastructure workforce if they cannot even hold onto the current one? Many infrastructure leaders have experience building projects, but far less in collaborating with workforce partners or recruiting and retaining talent.” The collaboration piece is where economic developers really shine. Take them out of the market place and there will be a lot of stalled projects and missed opportunities.
