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To earn money or keep their hand in the game, many retirees head back to work or start their own businesses.

It took Jay Franklin ten years and three attempts to actually retire. "I flunked retirement
. . . twice," jokes Franklin, 69, a hard-charging former sales executive from Thornton, Pa.

After being unexpectedly downsized as vice-president of an international company in June 1996, Franklin, then 58, took the summer off. He hung out with his wife, Doreen, at their beach house in New Jersey and played golf with his friends. He had a pension, lifetime health benefits, a respectable investment portfolio and a closet full of custom-made dress shirts. Retirement, even an accidental one, wasn't so bad.

But when the summer ended and all of his buddies went back to work, Franklin got restless. "There's a loss of identity when you retire, and I missed being in the game," he says. "No one teaches you how to retire."

Jobs aplenty

There's more to retirement planning than padding your 401(k) and signing up for Medicare. Tired of endless hours of leisure and no set routine, some retirees return to their old jobs, find new employers or start their own businesses. (This author didn't have to look far to find someone who was rethinking traditional retirement. Jay Franklin is her older brother.)

In 2006, the number of workers older than 55, including those who are self-employed, reached a record 24.6 million (one-fourth of them were 65 or older). The surge in nonretired retirees will continue. Research by AARP has consistently found that about 80% of baby-boomers say they plan to continue working, at least part-time, past the traditional retirement age of 65.

With the economy sound and the job market strong, many employers welcome the trend. Fearful of staff shortages after boomers retire, companies are willing to offer experienced workers flexible hours, part-time schedules and innovative "snowbird" programs that let employees split a job between summer and winter locations.

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Michael Jalbert, president of MRINetwork, one of the world's largest professional-staffing firms, says his company places an increasing number of retired baby-boomers in jobs. "Companies seek people with the skills, experience and work ethic of that generation," says Jalbert. "It's a candidate-driven market."

Many employers also think older workers are just as productive as their younger counterparts, if not more so, according to a recent report by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. After surveying 400 employers, the center's staff concluded that managers and professionals have better prospects for extending their careers than rank-and-file workers. The report also notes that midsize employers (with 100 to 1,000 employees) offer the best opportunities for older workers.

On the downside, employers view older workers as more costly than their younger counterparts because of their higher salaries and benefits. So you may need to accept less money to land a new job.

Pocket money

Aside from keeping you busy, returning to work lets you add to your retirement nest egg or pay for vacations and other extras without dipping into your savings. When Cleo Dawson retired from the human-resources department at the Principal Financial Group in 2003, she never expected to work again. But a year later, Dawson got a call asking if she would work part-time interviewing job candidates. Now 68, she helps out in Principal's "Happy Returns" program, which recruits alumni to work on an hourly basis.

Initially, Dawson worked about 15 hours a week at the company's headquarters in Des Moines. Lately, she's conducted phone interviews from home. The hourly pay supplements two small pensions, Social Security benefits and withdrawals from her 401(k). "The first two years, I put the money into savings," Dawson says. "Now I use it for travel and to purchase the whimsical things that I don't need." Her personal treats include two trips to Alaska over the past two years.

Just a few years' more work can have a significant impact on your retirement income. You can continue adding to your 401(k) or other retirement plan, which reduces your current taxes and lets those investments continue to grow. Working longer also means you'll have to rely on your savings for fewer years.

A job can also boost your Social Security benefits. Although you can collect as early as age 62, your Social Security checks will be about 25% smaller -- for the rest of your life -- than if you wait till your normal retirement age. And if you continue to work and collect Social Security before your normal retirement age, you will lose $1 in benefits for every $2 you earn over $13,560 in 2008.

Once you reach your regular retirement age -- which is 65 and 10 months for those born in 1942, who turned 65 in 2007 -- you can collect full Social Security benefits, no matter how much you earn by working. The normal retirement age increases to 66 for those born between 1943 and 1954, and rises gradually to 67 for people born later.

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