“For the first time in the history of mankind, there are four generations in the workforce. There are 35 million Traditionalists (Silent Gen) and 84 million Baby Boomers, the largest number of workers, which began to retire in 2010-11. There are 68 million Generation Xers and 79 million Generation Yers (Millennials as they are better known).

There will be no escaping the demographic reality that in the very near future, there will be 84 million retiring Baby Boomers, followed by 68 million Gen Xers to replace them. This will create an employee vacuum in the workforce that only the 79 million Gen Yers can fill, increasing the demand and compl etion for Gen Y employees, in addition to increasing the ongoing challenges of working with a multigenerational workforce.”

This statement was provide by Dr. Gustavo Grodnitzky1, to a group of CEOs. I had been invited to sit in with the group and spend a half day listening to Dr. Gustavo and discussing how businesses are dealing with things like generational differences, Gen Y challenges and strengths, as well as how to recruit and retain a Gen Y workforce.