Some retirees aren't suited to play rounds of golf or read all day. They have to stay mentally busy. Many retailers take advantage of this older age group, so says The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Financial Times and http://www.aarp.com.

Retail giants like Wal-Mart, Toys R Us and Babies R Us, The Home Depot, Borders Booksellers and CVS Drugs across the country work in tandem with the Association for the Advancement of Retired People (AARP) to provide job opportunities to seniors.

AARP notes that seniors work well in many customer-focused roles. Retirees or near retirees tend to be more patient with customers, show more experience, are detailed in getting the customers' needs met, display leadership skills, tend to be more positive in dealing with difficult clients and are more apt to quiet rambunctious children in their presence. Older Americans can serve as cashiers, customer service representatives, store greeters, floor associates, classroom instructors in specific industries (airline pilots, adjunct professors in medicine, legal and financial arenas) and insurance salesmen.

Some seniors use the retail work as a transition to full retirement. Too old for their prior jobs, but still too young to collect full benefits from the job they retired from, they use the part time retail income to sustain themselves.

There is a group of seniors on two ends of the working scale: those who work to keep busy and those who work to make ends meet. Senior retail workers often work because they really enjoy helping other people, they feel purposeful and the job serves them better than just reading, feeding birds in the park and golfing or getting underfoot at home. On the other end of the scale, some seniors must work to pay for basic expenses. For a myriad of reasons including late retirement savings or those savings having gone to unforeseen medical issues and not too few because their wives or husbands had passed away the additional income and benefits does address their financial concerns. If seniors wish to keep their specific, foreseen and expected lifestyles, being and staying idle after retirement isn't an option.

Depending on their personality, some seniors aren't suited for retail. Some seniors instruct in vocational or recreational centers; work as customer service representatives; begin community leagues; decide to work in the healthcare industry, or focus on the business and marketing end of a corporation; teach in private or adult higher learning schools; return to college for a degree; decide to embark on another career choice; or start new businesses of their own.

For more information for this and other senior options, visit www.aarp.com.

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