As America's work force ages, we continue to move toward a confluence of irreversible realities that, if unaddressed, threaten our ability to innovate, grow and lead.

This is not hyperbole. This is fact.

Thirty years ago, the U.S. work force was growing at an average annual rate of 30 percent. Just two decades later - in the 1990s through today - it has been 12 percent and declining. It is anticipated that it will shortly be 3 percent, and within five years, as more of the 76 million baby boomers begin to retire, there will be no growth at all.

More alarming, by 2010, the number of pre-retirees will increase by 52 percent, while the 35-to-44-year-old work force, typically ready to move into senior management positions, will decline by 19 percent.

For the following two decades, the knowledge drain through aging will continue to worsen as the 76 million boomers are replaced by 42 million Gen-Xers.

And be aware that this affects government as well as business. Five years from now almost 50 percent of all federal employees will be eligible to retire.

As the clouds of aging build, the coming storm is being intensified by the winds of an accelerated need for caregiving. In 2002, the Department of Health & Human Services' Administration on Aging estimated that 13 percent of the work force was distracted by caregiving responsibilities.

At a time when our work force was still growing, caregiving responsibilities cost American businesses $34 billion annually.

As the ratio of retirees to workers continues to skew, the percentage of our work force encumbered by eldercare responsibilities will grow geometrically, strangling productivity and bleeding gross national product.

The ominous calm before the storm is resident in our preoccupation with regulatory compliance and corporate governance to the exclusion of the perfect storm gathering around us.

We are further endangered by a failure to do the numbers:

• Although the Human Resource Institute stated that 70 percent of employers have reported increases in caregiving-related staffing problems in the past 10 years, companies often focus on the cost of action while ignoring the greater cost of inaction.

• In 2005, the Family and Work Institute's National Study of Employers reported that 46 percent of companies surveyed cited the cost of work-life programs as a "major obstacle" to implementation, even though such programs have been shown to reduce employee turnover and increase on-the-job focus.

There are things both business and government can do.

These clouds can be seeded by rethinking priorities, modifying strategies and reworking policies:
• Create emeritus positions between full employment and retirement that allow employees to work at a reduced level with reduced salary and benefits. Perhaps a year prior to attaining emeritus status, those selected for such positions would be responsible for training those assuming their position in the company and then would serve as an emeritus consultant.

• Pension plans and 401(k) programs should be reviewed and restructured to better fit the realities of today's population.

• Programs that help employees deal with the burdens of eldercare should be evaluated in light of the real costs borne by not doing so.

• Strategic partnerships between businesses and the community that ameliorate caregiver responsibilities should be formed.

These are just a few ideas to seed the coming storm.

They won't stop it from coming, but they can reduce the damage.

(This article was published in Rocky Mountain News – Colorado)

Lon Pinkowitz is President of Inter-MarketLink and a board member of the Alliance for Holistic Aging. He may be reached at lp@inter-marketlink.com.