It’s a change in the law that many retirees are taking advantage of. According to a recent study by Putnam Investments around 7 million previously retired Americans are working for pay again after an average of a year and a half away, some by choice, and others spurred by financial need.

“After five years of traveling, then remodeling the house, I realized how much I missed the camaraderie of the people in the real estate and loan businesses,” said Hans Nielsen of US Mortgage Corporation. Prior to retirement Nielsen was the founder and owner of Northwest Mortgage, which he ran from the early 1990s until 2000 when he sold it to CFA. The company, now CFA Northwest Mortgage, is one of the most well-known mortgage broker firms in the county, and Nielsen still provides the company with consulting services.

Boredom drove Sandy Livermore, a retired junior high school math teacher, back to the working world, at least in a part-time capacity.

“I needed structure,” she said. Now Livermore works during tax season doing income taxes and is the treasurer, on a volunteer basis, for the Master Gardener Foundation.

“I was enjoying life, moving right along,” said David Gitch, Harrison Medical Center’s former president, of his retirement, “When I got a phone call.”

That call was to ask Gitch if he would serve as the interim director at Bremerton Housing Authority. Gitch sat on the committee that studied the proposed merger of Bremerton Housing Authority with Kitsap County Consolidated Housing Authority over the summer. His knowledge of the organization’s mission and his association with the people who asked him to take the role spurred him to come out of retirement, at least for the next six months.

“I thought about it and decided it would be a good thing to do,” said Gitch. Plus, “I had the time to do it.”

Finding employment when you are retirement age can have its own set of challenges, on top of the normal frustrations of job seeking. Employers are sometimes reluctant to hire older workers, due to factors that may range from legitimate job requirement concerns to thinly veiled age discrimination. On the other side of the coin, retirement-age workers may have difficulty finding a job that offers them desired schedule flexibility or provides them with sufficient job satisfaction.

 AARP, the nonprofit, nonpartisan membership organization for people age 50 and over in the United States, offers job-seeking retirees a number of resources on its Web site, including an annual list of best employers for workers over 50. None of the 2005 honorees were in Seattle area, but retirees not interested in relocating to, say, Moline, Illinois, to work for Deere & Company still have options.

A 2002 article on the AARP site lists 10 wide-ranging job ideas for older workers, including teacher’s assistant, bank teller, floral assistant, customer greeter, tour guide, and security screener. Other job options include working as a temp or even starting a new business.

Many business-minded retirees are able to channel the valuable skills and knowledge they’ve acquired over the years into successful consulting practices.

“Since retirement, the phone rings and usually it’s either a mortgage or real estate company calling because they have a special project that needs to be handled,” said Nielsen. “My wife is a QuickBooks expert. She gets calls from CPAs who have no idea how to set up their own clients on the QuickBooks program. I get calls from companies that need a supervising real estate or mortgage broker to cover for vacationing owners and managers.”

Workers who are approaching retirement age but aren’t sure they’re ready to retire might consider looking to their current employer for options, including bridge positions, phased retirement, part-time employment, telecommuting, or freelancing.

Volunteering is an option for retirees who want to stay active and seek new challenges, but don’t need or want to work. Volunteer opportunities abound in every community from local animal shelters to arts organizations, and everything in between.