If you’re in a leadership role, it’s essential to implement safety considerations that take age into account, so you can keep your employees safe on the job.

Within the coming decades, lifetime cancer risk i.e., cancer incidence in the U.S. will increase 50%-70% mainly because of population growth and an aging population.

Most construction leaders recognize the dangers of their profession – and how inadequate safety training contributes to that danger. But establishing a comprehensive training program isn’t easy, especially with a cross-generational workforce.

The U.S. workforce is now composed of four generations: Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z. Age ranges for these generations in 2019 were: boomers (55-73); Gen X (39-54); Millennials (23-38); and Gen Z (6-22).

America’s workforce is aging. According to AARP, nearly half of new jobs in the U.S. last year were filled by workers 55 years or older. Due largely to ongoing labor shortages, this disproportionately small demographic accounted for more than 1.4 million of the 2.9 million new jobs in 2018, many of them in the fast-growing sector of warehousing and distribution centers.

Americans are living longer and working longer, resulting in an unprecedented transfor-mation of the workplace, according to the United States Senate’s Special Committee on Aging.