In an ominously titled A kinder, gentler treadmill the Financial Times looks at the large wave of baby boomers nearning retirement age, noting that in many cases “retirement” will not mean a leisure suits, shuffleboard and travel but in actuality to keep on working in some form of self-employment.

“For Baby Boomers, self-employment may serve as the ideal transition between the 9-to-5 corporate treadmill and traditional full-stop retirement. They may continue to work, but on their own terms.”

The article also touches on succession planning, noting that there may be as many as 500,000 Canadian self-employed boomers getting ready to retire, many of them intending to hand the reigns of the family business over to children, and that those children may have other plans.

“If the plan is to pass the business to the kids, the family needs to talk about it and plan for it … Many business owners are unpleasantly surprised to find their goals for the transition of the business do not match those of their children.”"

Mark Jeftovic has been a self-employed internet professional since 1994, currently he is the founder and president of easyDNS Technologies Inc., the DNS hosting company and domain registrar. His personal blog is at http://mark.jeftovic.net