Retired and bored? How about a job?:

Marcella Nance retired in 1996 after 24 years as an elementary school teacher with the Detroit Public Schools, and found it dull. So a year later, at the age of 63, Nance went to work for Kelly Services as a seminar coordinator for a variety of clients.

“I don’t play bridge and I don’t golf, and I decided that I didn’t want to stay at home,” she said. “I worked a long time, and I wanted to continue to work because it keeps the gray matter going. It keeps me thinking; it keeps me planning.”

Nance, now 72, represents a growing phenomenon in the American work force — older workers who are discovering new careers after retirement.

With the first wave of the 77 million baby boomers turning 60 next year, businesses are becoming increasingly worried about a crippling labor shortage in the near future.

“There is a talent shortage looming,” said Teresa Carroll, vice president of recruiting and retention for Kelly Services, the global temporary employment firm headquartered in Troy. “We are very concerned. We go through these cycles all the time. But this cycle is going to be exponentially worse because of the demographics and the baby boomers.”

It is estimated that by 2010, one out of every three workers will be 50 or older.

To prepare for the projected labor shortfall, several companies, including Kelly and Borders Group Inc., based in Ann Arbor, have launched campaigns to retain and recruit older workers.

Kelly and Borders, along with 22 other national firms, have been recognized by the AARP as “Featured Employers” for their efforts in retaining, recruiting and hiring workers older than 50.

“We are working with forward-thinking companies who value older workers to offset labor and knowledge gaps,” said Bill Novelli, CEO of AARP. “This is a winning strategy for American business, for the older workers themselves, and for our national economy.”

Seniors are working longer or going back to work for a number of reasons. Many want to supplement their retirement and Social Security incomes. Others miss the social relationships a job provides. Others are simply bored by a stay-at-home life.

A survey released last week by Putnam Investments revealed about 7 million retired workers returned to work after an average retirement of 1 1/2 years.

Two-thirds of those went back to work because they wanted to; the other third because of economic necessity. Putnam’s research was based on a national survey of 1,726 working retirees with an average age of 61.

It was the interaction with people that Nels Larson, 70, of Lathrup Village, an engineer who once was the CEO of a small manufacturing firm, missed most after he retired at 64.

“I was just sort of batting around,” he said. “All my friends were living in other parts of the world or were dead.”

So Larson went to Kelly Services and was hired to sell cellular phones for a Kelly client during the hours he wanted — noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

“I think it is a thing of getting up in the morning and having a place to be on time,” Larson said. “Otherwise, you might have a tendency not to get up in the morning and shave, but just lounge around.

“I think you have to have direction regardless of one’s age,” he said. “You cannot play golf and read books all day, every day. That is not as satisfying as interaction and, as we say, pressing the flesh.”

Larson, who has another Kelly job now, said he found “the fountain of youth” working for three years with so many younger people at the cell phone company.

They accepted him as their peer, he said. “They would invite me out drinking beer and to poker parties and everything else,” Larson said.

Barbara Kinzer, looking for a part-time job to supplement her family income, was hired at a Borders in Virginia at age 50. She had spent most of her adult years overseas with her husband, George, a Foreign Service officer, and had little work experience.

“I didn’t have a resume; I had never gone for an interview,” she said. Other companies turned her down, but Borders thought her experience working with cultural groups overseas was a form of customer service.

“I was hired,” she said. “Going to the store and getting the books out was like opening up presents on Christmas morning every day.”

Kinzer has gone through a series of supervisor jobs and today works in the company’s Ann Arbor office reviewing employee applications for emergency financial assistance from an in-house foundation.

To this day, she said, she is still “amazed” by her hiring.

“How many other women in my age group can have a career start basically from nothing and be able to reinvent, to discover oneself, and to make a difference?” she asked.

Kinzer’s husband, now retired from the Foreign Service, also works for Borders as an administrative assistant to two directors.

Roslyn Smith, 52, parlayed her love of books into a new career as a bookseller in the Borders store in the Compuware building in downtown Detroit.

She had worked for 17 years as a medical technician at Detroit Osteopathic Hospital in Highland Park when it closed in 1992.

As a hobby, Smith said, she collected rare and out-of-print books. Because of her love of books and hope of opening her own bookstore someday, she applied for a book-selling job at Borders’ Dearborn store in 1994. She was hired.

After a series of promotions, she is now the sales manager at the downtown store. “I am 52 years old,” she said.

“I am not ashamed of that. I feel I have a lot to offer the workplace. I’m glad that Borders recognizes that.”

Mature workers make good booksellers, said Dan Smith, Borders senior vice president of human resources, pointing out that half of all books sold are to people older than 45. It is just “human nature,” he said, for people to want to buy from someone who is like them.

The dependability of older workers is particularly prized by companies.

“I absolutely don’t have to worry about them coming to work,” said Lena Barkley, a Detroit regional learning center manager for CVS, the national drugstore chain. “They come in on time. If they are to be at my door at 8 a.m., they will be there at 15 minutes to 8.”

“They are dependable,” agreed Smith. “They are going to show up for work. They are less likely to call in sick because they had a little too much to drink the night before.”

Older workers also tend to stay with their employer longer, officials of several companies say. The turnover rate among Borders employees, for example, Smith said, is 10 times less for workers older than 50 than it is for workers younger than 30.

Employers are experimenting with a number of innovative benefit programs to lure older workers. Many are offering health care and dental benefits, 401(k) retirement savings plans, vacation days and flexible schedules.

“Many older workers don’t want a full-time job,” Carroll of Kelly Services said. “They like to take time off when they want, to take a vacation when they want.”

Smith said Borders can accommodate most requests. People can work one day a week or five days, he said, four hours to 40 hours a week.

A number of companies, including CVS and Borders, offer a snowbird program, allowing an older employee to work in Michigan in the summer and in Florida in the winter.

Nance retired once from the Detroit schools, but she doesn’t plan her second retirement anytime soon.

“I plan to be around a long time,” she said. “They are going to have to kick me out. As long as I am healthy and I have a lot of energy, I will be here.”

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