ReZoom

A recent story in pe.com looks at firms hiring older workers and what the payoffs are for employer and employee.

"Customers in the over-45 age bracket currently make over 50 percent of all book purchases," said Andrea Smith, a senior recruiting manager at Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Borders, Inc. "In fact, 25 percent of heavy book buyers are over 50 and 17 percent are over 55."

The story reports that about 15 percent of Borders' 30,000-workforce is 50 and older, above the national workplace average of 13 percent. The attraction for the company is that Boomer age employees have less turnover and absenteeism, and bring practical problem-solving skills to the job.

Meanwhile, Rhode Island-based drugstore chain CVS increased the number of 50 and older workers from 7 percent in the early 1990s to more than 17 percent today.

And Atlanta-based Home Depot has hired more than 68,000 store workers 50 and older in the last three years since partnering with AARP on hiring.

Ian Appleford, a human resources manager at the Home Depot store in north Fontana, Calif., says the 50+ workforce is generally better able to help customers on home-improvement questions. They've been an important factor in recent years as expanded construction has taken workers who otherwise might have worked at stores like Home Depot.