By EDUARDO PORTER
PITTSBURGH-TO be perfectly blunt
about it, Pittsburgh is getting old. Half the line workers
who repair, maintain and upgrade the grid at
Duquesne Light, its electric utility, will be eligible
to retire by the end of the decade. Likewise, half the 6,500
nurses working at the University of Pittsburgh Medical
Center hospitals will hit the typical retirement age of 55
in the next seven years. And just outside of town, at
Westinghouse Electric, which designs and maintains nuclear
power generators, the average age of engineers is the late
40's.
The trend has some people
worried. "A silent crisis threatens the prosperity of
Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania," warned a report done
two years ago by the Center for Competitive Workforce
Development at Duquesne University. "A declining and aging
population places at risk the stability of the region's work
force and opportunities for economic progress."
In other words, there just
may not be enough young workers to go around in the
not-too-distant future. So the older ones may have to stick
around a lot longer than they originally planned.
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