South Bend-Elkhart region seeking young, high-skill talent as current residents get older
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After over 30 years working as a server at Bob Evans, 70-year old Vivian Miller finally gets weekends off. Following a divorce, Miller abandoned her undergraduate degree in accounting, picked up the job at the restaurant and never looked back.
Miller is one of thousands of senior citizens who decide to keep working past retirement, mostly because social security “is not very much when you’re a server.”
The Council on Aging of Elkhart County is one of the few organizations catering to the needs of folks like Miller who need help as they get older. The not-for-profit’s former CEO, David Toney, is sounding the alarm on the region’s aging population and its implications.
“Right now there’s about 53,000 senior citizens; by 2030, there will be close to 80,000. Meanwhile, kids 18 and younger, there’s about 55,000; By [2030] there’s only going to be 38,000,” said Toney. “Think about it, who’s going to serve your hamburger when you go to McDonald’s? There’s going to be a huge gap.”
This population trend is set to remain in place for the next 40 years, population projections from the Indiana Business Research Center (IBRC) suggest. But it’s not just a regional or state problem, across the U.S., the youngest baby boomer will be 65 by 2030. In Indiana, that translates to 1 in 5 Hoosiers.
The South Bend-Elkhart Regional Partnership, tasked with recruiting and retaining talent, partnered with Indianapolis-based MakeMyMove to attract high skill, high demand remote workers into the region.
“We’re concluding our first year of working with them and have moved 17 individuals who have also brought other people with them as well,” Bethany Hartley, president of the South Bend-Elkhart Regional Partnership said. “They are putting their kids into our schools, their bonus talents are finding jobs here, it’s a wonderful thing.”
Focused on the cities of Elkhart and South Bend, as well as the town of Culver, new residents are offered $5,000 in cash along with several non-cash incentives such as coworking space access, gym memberships, and zoo tickets. The program only accepts candidates outside Indiana with a minimum salary of $55,000. People from California, Florida and Texas have taken advantage of the offer.
“We’re coming into peak moving season for this region, so we feel pretty confident that we’re going to hit our goal of 32 by June,” Hartley added. “We have a huge pipeline right now of a couple of 100 prospects.”
Toney believes the country does not put a huge emphasis on its aging population because of its focus on younger generations.
“But we still need to take care of those who came before us and those who held our hand when we needed a hand to be held,” he added. “We tell our drivers, caregivers, volunteers, whoever is interfacing with our senior citizens that they are not there to do a specific job, they’re there to put a smile on the client’s face, because in many cases, we’re the only people they would see that day.”
The St. Joseph County Commission on Aging and Real Services Inc., a South Bend-based agency, are some of the other organizations providing services to the senior community in the region. Real Services offers services in Elkhart, Fulton, Jasper, Kosciusko, Lake, LaPorte, Marshall, Newton, Porter, Pulaski, Starke, and St. Joseph counties.
“There’s a lot of work already going on. We see a lot of efforts from both the local and state government trying to improve the quality of place and quality of life,” Matthew Kinghorn, senior demographer at IBRC said. “Efforts need to continue, also improving health, particularly for working age adults would be a big step forward and help our economy and our labor force.”
Stating concern for the future of the state’s workforce, Rachel Strange, a geodemographic analyst with the IBRC, reasoned that the tight labor conditions may serve as a launchpad for economic opportunities for baby boomers who need or desire to work past retirement. Her analysis noted an uptick in the number of people working past 65.
Hartley agrees there’s a lot of potential for the region’s senior population to tap into. Volunteering is another avenue where Hartley believes seniors can contribute to, with not-for-profits being a big industry in the region.
“I think there’s actually an untapped potential as someone whose mother just retired a couple of years ago and the woman does this and that in order to stay busy,” she said. “I actually just saw a startup that’s looking to employ a senior age workforce for meal packaging and delivery.”
Seniors who require the Council on Aging’s service are required to fill a form, as part of terms agreed on for grant funding. The organization looks at the application to see what services the applicant qualifies for, and meets those needs either free of charge, at a reduced rate or with private pay. In 2023, only 3% of their clients had to pay out of pocket, Toney said.
With less than 50% of its clients having family in the county, the council hopes to have its own facility where the elderly can access activities such as woodwork, clay work, gardening and exercising in the future.
The South Bend-Elkhart Regional Partnership is also invested in retaining graduates from the University of Notre Dame as well as graduating high school seniors. There are currently more than 30,000 college students in the area.
“As a region, yes, we have an aging population. As a country, we also have an aging population,” Hartley said. “So when we think about the workforce as a piece of our attraction strategies with economic development, that’s where I go back to thinking about how we are recruiting and retaining our high school and college graduates.”
The organization recently held the first edition its Student Immersion Experience, inviting primarily STEM students from the region and within a two-hour driving radius to show them what life could look like working in the South Bend-Elkhart region.
“They had lunch with Mayor Wood in Mishawaka, dinner with Mayor Mueller in South Bend and visited Elkhart’s River District,” Hartley added. “They also met with employers and they brought their resumes and the whole purpose is for them to get internships here this summer and for them to experience the region in a different way, especially if they’re from here.”
Drawing from her own experience, Hartley said she understands the itch to want to leave the region, having done so herself and returning after 10 years away. She’s on board with the kids going away to see the world, just as long as they come back as adults with a wealth of experience to advance and contribute to the region’s growth.
The Regional Partnership also provides subsidy funding for employers to hire interns at a minimum of $15 per hour in the summer for eight weeks. The South Bend Regional Chamber also provides social programming for the students with its Summer Connect program.
Hartley also commended the universities and colleges in the area for responding to regional demands and incorporating workplace learning in their programming.
“We have one of the three tier-one research institutes in the state with Notre Dame here and they are really doubling down on the region as far as integrating and attracting and retaining their students in the area,” she said. “They’re putting kids in facilities and showing them what manufacturing actually looks like because often we’re told, it’s dirty, it’s difficult, it’s dangerous, and the majority of manufacturing is not like that anymore. It’s pretty sophisticated and clean.”
While Miller said she isn’t about to change jobs at 70, she concluded that she wouldn’t make the same decisions if she could go back in time.
“If I were to do it over I wouldn’t have had so many children,” she said. “I wouldn’t have left school and I probably would have had a career in the health field.”