Here Are 40 of the Best Jobs for Retirees

Are you a retiree but still want to work?

Retirement and the concept of transitioning to the next phase of life are undergoing reevaluation. People either delay their retirement to a later age or “retire early” after finding financial independence through the FIRE movement.

Both can be excellent options. When it comes to retirement, no one roadmap works for everyone, including spouses. It is not unusual for spouses who have been together for decades to have different goals if and when they retire.

Craig and I differ when it comes to the joys and virtues of working. I always enjoy working, facing challenges I could overcome, meeting people, and finding meaning in what I do. Craig is more traditional, enjoys being an attorney but would like to do other things besides work. These days there are more options to work from anywhere while you travel, or seasonally, so why not consider what is best for you?

According to a Transamerica Center For Retirement Studies survey, many workers expect to retire after age 65 or never retire. The majority (55%) of workers plan to work in retirement either part-time (41%) or full-time (14%). Those who plan to retire after age 65 or work after retirement suggest financial reasons and staying active as grounds not to retire just yet.

You’re at the golden gate, and some of the best years are in front of you. Yet, you don’t want to fully retire even though you are at that “traditional” age to do so. There are many things you enjoy doing and wanting to try out. This time in your life may be an excellent time to start a business, join a board, become a tour guide, or work in retail.

Reasons for Jobs for Retirees:

• Fear of not having enough savings for retirement years.
• Prefer taking social security benefits as late as possible (age 70).
• Health care costs are rising, and you would like to boost your nest egg.
• Make extra money to continue to live a good lifestyle.
• Enjoy the social engagement and relationships you make through working.
• Seek intellectual stimulation from solving problems at work.
• Continuing to work as a senior citizen may not appeal to everyone, but the virtues of work are plentiful for many.

We put together a list of jobs for retirees that should fit the varying needs and lifestyles of those who prefer to remain working whether you want to:

• Work from home and online.
• Leverage your career credentials and skills.
• Use a car or a house.
• Get additional training or certification.
• Have more spare time.
• Share your knowledge and experiences.

40 Jobs For Retirees

1. Bookkeeper

Do you enjoy working with numbers? Bookkeepers are those who manage accounts, invoices, payroll, and other financial records for businesses. They use various math and computer programs like Excel, Quickbooks, and other accounting software. These jobs pay up to $20 per hour if you have sole responsibility and manage other people.

 2. Join a Board

Serving on a board for a non-profit or corporation is an excellent way to leverage your credentials, skills,  and skills. It also can be pretty lucrative. According to the National Association of Corporate Directors, compensation can go up to $115,000 for a large private company seat on the Board. At the same time, a public corporation could command go up to $214,000.

There is significant demand for underrepresented people like female and minority board members that have relevant experience. Sharing your skills on a board can be fulfilling for those who have been managers and leaders. NACD offers certificate programs so you can strengthen your skills.

3. Business or Management Consultant

An option for those who enjoyed their job, and are not ready to fully retire, is becoming a business or management consultant. You can continue to work at your current employer either part-time or flexible hours or do it independently.

Leveraging what you know to advise on business processes (i.e., business consultancy) or dealing with the people side of the organization (i.e., management consultancy) to develop training or organizational culture can be a win-win solution. For many, consulting is a transitional move to full retirement while earning extra income.

According to Payscale, the average annual base salary, before bonuses, working full-time is $88,628 for a management consultant and $75,151 for a business consultant.

4. Administrative Assistant/ Secretary

Retirees can work as administrative assistants or secretaries, especially if they bring a set of varying skills to do essential nitty-gritty work. Their responsibilities are to support administrative professionals in any sector and can work remotely.

They help in multiple ways by organizing, completing tasks, scheduling appointments, coordinating meetings, performing bookkeeping, and create filing. The average annual salary for administrative assistant staff is $33,510. Still, if they are executive administrative assistants or executive secretaries, their wages can go to $65,230 or a mean hourly wage of $31.36, depending on where you work.

Engineering Jobs

Engineering is a field like nursing where there is strong demand by employers who need in-depth knowledge, technical expertise, the professional judgment of those who have years of experience. Retired engineers often want to continue in the field after retirement to satisfy their need for intellectual stimulation and solve problems.

They can work part-time and remotely as engineering consultants, independent contractors, freelancers, or contingent workers on short-term or longer-term projects.

Among available engineering jobs and national average salaries for retirees are:

5. Logistics Supervisor

The logistics supervisor oversees daily operations at manufacturing plants and warehouses, coordinating shipments of products. Since the pandemic, supply constraints have impacted product deliveries in virtually every industry. This job commands an annual salary of $54,209.

6. Technical Writer

Engineers can be essential to communicating their know-how. If they write well, they use their expertise as technical writers who write instruction manuals and other technical documents to help consumers and professionals navigate machinery, equipment, and appliances. They earn about $57,116.

7. Engineering Professor

There is strong demand for engineering professors to teach aspiring engineering in undergraduate and graduate students. Professors can get $59,660 annually.

8. Quality Assurance Inspector

The quality assurance inspector works for factories and manufacturing plants to ensure the proper and efficient assembly of products and processes according to rules and regulations or recommend changes. They earn about $59,651.

9. Home Inspector

Although you do not need to be an engineer to perform a home inspection, retired engineers who have valuable expertise and experience often become home inspectors. Home inspectors assess electrical, heating, plumbing, and structural systems in houses. It is essential for homebuyers to have protection by hiring home inspectors to find potential defects in buying homes.

Most homes will be sound and secure, but hazards could make the home inspection potentially dangerous. For retirees, you can have flexible hours though working in the field, not online.

Many, but not all states, require that you take training and an exam for licensing purposes. According to BLS, home inspection comes under the Building/Construction Inspector and can earn $58,000 or $450 per inspection.

10. Park Ranger

Do you like the great outdoors? You may like this next job, which often attracts retired doctors, lawyers, and accountants, among other people. Retirees often serve as park rangers in National Parks, which are seasonal jobs (usually six months per year) that provide fresh air, beautiful scenery.

Perusing usajobs.com, I found a job posting on National Park Service that reflects salaries ranging from $64,649 to $84,049 annually. Check it out! I saw other “Help Wanted” for park rangers advertised by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that have technical requirements.

Nursing Field

Those working in the nursing field, notably registered nurses (RNs), have satisfying skill-rich careers. They may want to continue their fulfilling work after retirement in varying capacities. Many nurses miss the team-oriented nature of their field and fulfilling their call to help people.

The pandemic was particularly harsh on nurses who were at the center of those who suffered the most. As a result of the traumatic effects, many nurses left the field, causing shortages of nurses across the country.  There are several nurse-related jobs with respective national average salaries for retirees:

11. Home Care Nurse

Home care nurses provide services for patients following surgery, rehabilitation, or longer-term care, averaging $16.40 per hour.

12. First Aid Instructor

Retiree nurses can teach CPR, basic life support skills, and first aid training in emergencies before first responders. They can teach in schools, retirement communities, and hospitals, to name a few. They earn about $23.61 per hour.

13. School Nurse

I can’t tell you how often my kids have gone to the school nurse, but it was far more than the school librarian! The school nurse provides health and emergency care to students from K-12 and colleges or camps during the summer when they are sick or injured.  They can earn annually $49,220.

14. Part-Time Nurse

Nurses are essential round-the-clock and fill in gaps when full-time nurses are out or unavailable. They communicate and monitor patients, reporting on their observations to update charts and reports. They earn $31.05 on an hourly basis.

15. Medical Sales Executive

Medical sales executives can leverage their nursing expertise and familiarity with patients and medical professionals such as physicians, hospitals, and pharmacists to serve as liaisons to get drugs, devices, and equipment to those in need. As such, they earn, on average, $74,907 per year.

16. Travel Nurse

Travel nurses may accept assignments in varying regions temporarily to provide nursing services. They can fill gaps when there are nursing shortages due to special events such as Covid, hurricanes, earthquakes, anywhere in the country. They earn $1,734 per week, on average.

17. Security Guard

Retired law-enforcement officers often seek to be security guards after retirement at age 55+. They serve as unarmed security guards in retirement communities, banks, casinos, schools, and toll plazas on full or part-time. It remains a dangerous job. According to Salary.com, median salaries, before bonuses, are $33,502 in 2021.

 18. Drive For Uber or Lyft

Do you like driving? You can make your hours driving for ride-sharing services like Uber or Lyft. There are a few requirements like having a driver’s license and meeting the minimum age requirement in your chosen area. This job can be an excellent interim step towards full retirement.

They will review your background, including your driving record, for safety purposes. You will need a four-door car, preferably not a 20-year-old model, have insurance and registration. If you don’t have a suitable vehicle, you may rent one from these companies.

19. Personal Chef

Can you cook with flair and enjoy doing so? People like hiring skilled personal chefs for special events or long-term culinary needs. There may be education requirements for being a private or persona chef who can differ from your clients. If you are cooking meals for a particular person or family once in a while, it may be a less formal arrangement.

Hiring a chef may be for varying purposes such as nutrition, elderly or ill, parties, or in-home eating for busy people. Hourly rates are about $30-$40 per hour. However, charges vary per person for large parties.

On the other hand, clients may call on you to have a broad repertoire. You may need to show evidence of your cooking ability, culinary training, and certification. You list zip codes or areas you can provide services on sites like Hire A Chef.

20. Tutor Online or In Person

Do you have a passion for teaching and want flexibility? Become a tutor online or in person and share your knowledge. Select your hours and subject of expertise for the ACT or SAT, or graduate exams. Consider tutoring privately or classes. It can be a seasonal or all-year-round gig. Tutoring can work into your schedule by working part-time or remotely.

There are education requirements, with high school completion as the minimum. Typical hourly pay of $30 or higher will depend on the subject, with a more challenging curriculum like math getting higher demand and pay.  A few companies to consider working for: The Tutoring Company, Tutor.com, and TutorMe.

21. Adjunct Professor

Retirees often go to colleges towns as a destination in their senior years because of “increased cultural and learning opportunities.” Forbes’ 25 Best Places to Retire counts nine picks as college towns. The attraction for retirees is the chance to leverage their expertise and share their knowledge with young people. As such, retirees, who have advanced degrees, often become adjunct professors at colleges. Adjunct professors make about $1,500-$3,000 per course.

22. Participate In A Research Study

Have you ever wanted to be part of a research study and save humankind? Medical research is essential to finding new drugs, remedies, and dietary supplements, but they have to go through many clinical trials. Teaching hospitals, clinics, biotech companies, and research organizations seek people who will participate in their studies for paid opportunities that can be $1,000 or more. You can check local hospitals or clinics in your area, like ResearchMatch.org, Covance, or ClinicalTrials.gov. Kessler Foundation does survey questionnaires.

23. Earn Money Working For Amazon

Did you see the movie Nomadland, the movie about transient American seniors seasonally employed? w Francis McDormand’s character, Fern, works as part of Amazon’s “Camper Force’s” temporary workforce. Amazon offers sign-onbonuses of up to $1,000 and $20 an hour to work in their workforce. The vast majority of Amazon’s 1.3+ million employees have hours that work for them. Part-timers get the same benefits as full-time employees. Amazon has other opportunities, notably:

24. Amazon Flex encourages you to use your car to make deliveries for $18-$25 per hour, depending on the location.
25. Amazon Fresh is its grocery delivery of fresh food.
26. Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is an online crowdsourcing marketplace. You can become an MTurk employee in your spare time and be part of their global on-demand workforce.

Suppose you have spare time and want to work at MTurk from home. In that case, you can apply your skills to research data processing, data verification and details, image/video processing,  transcribe audio recordings, and information gathering. A lot of the work deals with tedious data gathering of completed surveys and polls. The hourly pay varies from low single digits to $16 per hour depending on the task, plus some jobs pay bonuses.

27. Become A Local Guide

People like learning about things off the beaten path. If you have specialized knowledge, speak in more than one language, and are passionate about the area you live in, you can become a local guide. Tour guides are in high demand when they share their expertise and stories that animate a specific city or town.

28. Become A Photographer

Do you enjoy photography as a hobby? Why not take it to the next step and pursue what you love doing, whether portraits, family photography, travel, sports, nature, stock photographs, or candid photography. Sell your photos online or to respective companies that specialize in your area of expertise. Consider listing on Fine Art America or stock photo sites like Getty Images or Shutterstock.

29. Freelance Writing

Do you enjoy writing? If you write well, you may want to consider doing it on a freelance basis. You want to consider a desirable niche that works for you. It takes time to develop your niche, writing skills, and voice.

There are many ways to land some writing jobs online. It is easier if you have a professional blog so that you can point to your work. However, you can start by doing cold pitches and contact editors online. When you’re new to freelance writing, check the job board for freelance writers,  and ask around if you can guest post.

30. Customer Service Representative

The customer service representative is often the company’s face when the consumer needs answers, help, or has complaints that may escalate into queries and concerns. They are responsible for engaging customers on behalf of the company.

Duties include answering questions on the phone or email, participating in meetings to provide feedback or learn new communication tactics, and having expert knowledge about a product or service. According to BLS, they may earn $17.23 per hour or $35,830 annually.

31. Retail Sales Associate

The retail industry, mainly brick and mortar companies, is bouncing back since the pandemic closed many retail stores. The retail sales associate engages customers by engaging them, making suggestive sales pitches, sharing product knowledge, and answering their questions. Retirees are welcome in all parts of the retail industry.

Depending on their retail experience, they can earn $13.13 per hour or $27,820 for the entry-level, or if they have more experience in their previous career, earnings can go up to $37,539 (Glassdoor). Retirees may consider these jobs part-time or for seasonal holidays.

32. Cashier

A cashier or a retail cashier is responsible for processing payments in cash, debit, credit, and checking transactions using the cash register or another point-of-sale system in a retail environment. They also balance the register at the end of the day, make a change, record purchases, and scan items for sale.

ZipRecruiter pegs cashiers’ earnings at $11 per hour or $22,599 on a national average.

33. Merchandise Displayer

The merchandise or visual displayer showcases the merchandise to move customers to make purchases. They design and install displays for clothes, accessories, jewelry, sporting equipment, furniture, and other windows. Retirees who have previous experience in retail may seek these jobs to leverage their prowess in the retail industry.

According to Payscale, the average merchandise displayer or window trimmer can earn  $58,958 annually.

34. Floral Arranger or Designer

If you like working with floral arrangements and have experience handling floral designs, this can be an excellent job for a retiree. Everyone seems happy when giving or receiving flowers and can make a dreary day feel like sunshine. I always admired those who arrange flowers in beautiful designs.

Becoming a florist became a dream job for Dr. Susan Garetz when she retired from medicine as an ear, nose, and throat specialist in 2016. Long before she retired, she joined a garden club and enjoyed making floral arrangements as her hobby, turning into her second act, studying how to do Japanese floral designing.

Floral arrangers earn $14.92 per hour or $31,033 annually.

35. Sell Your Crafts

Do you like making crafts? You can do it during your spare time and remotely. It has become much easier to sell your unique goods to a seemingly boundless market in recent years. These online marketplaces may charge listing, transaction, and payment processing fees, so you must check each company. The best-known companies are:

• Etsy
• Shopify
• Big Cartel
• Zibbet
• IndieMade
• ArtFire
• Handmade at Amazon

36. Selling Your Professional Services Online

There are expanding platforms to sell your professional services as freelancers. You can list your services and bid for jobs among the places you can list and bid for jobs are Fiverr, Upwork, and 99 Designs. You can name your price starting at $5, give your experience, and how you work. Among the services you can offer:

• Graphics & Design
• Digital, Email & Social Media Marketing
• Web Development
• Writing & Translation
• Videos & Animation
• Music & Audio

37. Tax Preparer

You don’t have to be a CPA to prepare taxes, but you probably want to be good with numbers. Tax preparation is usually seasonal, busy on the days leading up to the crunch time of April 15th, the traditional tax filing date. H&R Block will train you (for a fee) to work on taxes for them. Payscale shows tax preparers earn about $13.87 per hour.

38. Participate In Focus Groups

Market researchers rely on consumers to participate in focus groups to retrieve invaluable opinions on new and existing products and services. You can participate one-to-one by phone, zoom, in a small group that meets in person or online. Each focus group will be different. Your compensation could be on an hourly basis ranging from $50-$150 or per research session. Groups typically meet for an hour or two. Participation can be a lucrative gig for studies paying $400 per hour for those who have flexible schedules.

Here are recommended focus groups given their ratings:

• User Interviews
• Respondent.io
• Recruit and Field
• FocusGroup.com
• Probe Market Research

39. Become a House Sitter or Watcher

When people take vacations or travel for work, they will consider hiring a house sitter. Owners worried about burglaries seek security and peace of mind. Professional house-sitters may water plants, collect mail, take out the trash, and do pet care. They can earn $25-$45+ per hour, depending on the location. House sitters may do short overnight stays or more extended stays.

It is essential to the owner to trust someone temporarily residing in your home, taking care of beloved pets or plants. They will want a background check. You can register with organizations such as TrustedHouseSitter.com or HousesittersAmerica.com, where reviews and verification are helpful for prospective customers.  When pet sitting is the primary function, you can hire a pet sitter (see below).

A house or property watcher is different than a house sitter. The person may monitor the home a few times during the week. They look for disturbances and leaks and check the house’s temperature to avoid burst pipes or boiler problems. This job can be seasonal when areas are primarily for summer or winter homes.

40. Become a Pet Sitter

Do you love pets and want the next best thing to owning one? Pet sitter! We love our pets and will do almost everything to keep them comfortable when we are away. When pet sitting is the primary concern, owners will seek out experienced pet sitters to take care of their pets by feeding, walking, and paying attention to them. Let’s face it, we love these essential family members and want to avoid the kennels but. We also want to travel without guilt.

Pet sitters can be paid per hour or daily for visiting the pets during the day or staying overnight either in the person’s home or your home. Professional sitters may have several pets in your home at a time. The house-sitting organizations mentioned above do pet sitting as well.

Pet sitting can vary from $15-$50 per hour. We paid $65 per day plus tips for a pet sitter who happened to be our dog walker. He stayed overnight, feeding, walking, and caring for our dog.

 Final Thoughts

Many jobs for retirees may suit your lifestyle as you determine whether you want to work as a transition to full retirement, earn income, engage with other people, or simply enjoy the intellectual stimulation of lifelong learning.

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