WebProNews

While visits to online career development websites continue to grow, fuelled by fears of job security and increased layoffs, there’s one particular age group that has grown faster than others.

Visits to career development websites grew 20% YoY, according to Nielsen, rising 41.5 million visitors in January 2008 to just under 50 million in January this year.

The vast majority of visitors to career development sites, around 17.8 million, are aged 35-49. However, Nielsen found a significant surge in visitors aged 65 and older, increasing 41% from 2.5 million unique visitors in January 2008 to 3.6 million in January 2009.  

It appears the need to generate income is motivating the older generation to stay in work, especially during difficult and uncertain financial times when their nest-eggs are less than secure, and they are turning to the Internet to seek out jobs. For many older job seekers who have lost long-term jobs, the Internet is a new medium through which to find new positions and opportunities exist for niche content to attract them.

This trend looks set to continue, according to a report out last year from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They state that while the total labor force is projected to increase by 8.5% between 2006 and 2015, when broken down by age group some very different trends emerge. In particular, workers aged 55-64 are expected to rise by 36.5%, but the most dramatic surge will be among workers aged 65+ - up an incredible 80% as Baby Boomers flood the job market. 

Overall, workers aged 65 and over are predicted to make up 6.1% of the total labor force by 2016, up from 3.6% in 2006.

In January CareerBuilder was the most trafficked job site with 20.8 million unique visitors. Yahoo! HotJobs came in second with 11.8 million visitors, while Monster.com was third with 9.5 million visitors.