NO EXCESS OF TALENT

According to consultant RHR International Co., the country’s 500 biggest companies anticipate losing half their senior management in the next five to six years. There are too few bodies to replace them. As the 77 million U.S. baby boomers begin to retire, Generation X, now 24 to 40 years old, makes a paltry successor with 46 million people. That demographic gulch has been dug much deeper by the efficiency purges of the early 1990s, which wiped out middle management and taught laid off workers that there was little reward for loyalty. The result? There are very few companies that feel they have an excess of talent.