After decades of early mornings, late nights and endless paperwork, Australia’s Baby Boomer business owners are finally asking: “What now?”
They built businesses in the 1980s and ’90s – back when marketing meant a fax blast and Google was still just a big number.
These Boomers have powered the economy one sandwich shop, dry cleaner, and ute-load of plumbing supplies at a time. But now, Boomers are in their 60s and 70s, and face the final act of their working life.
While employees tend to retire in their mid- to late-60s, business owners tend to hang around for longer. Looking at all members of the workforce, once we surpass the age of 75, more than half of workers are business owners.
Spoiler alert: a surprising number of Boomer business owners have no idea what comes next.
Global data suggest that around 70 per cent of family businesses have no formal succession strategy. None. Nada. For many, planning for the end of their business is like writing their own obituary — too grim, too soon, and definitely not a fun Sunday afternoon activity.
And yet, time is marching on. The knees are creakier. The early starts feel earlier. That third coffee doesn’t hit quite like it used to.
Boomers aren’t just running businesses anymore — they’re running out of reasons not to retire.
Some have dreams of passing the reins to the kids. But the kids have other dreams – most of them involve tech startups, kombucha, and working from anywhere but the family shop. So, many Boomers pivot to Plan B – sell the business. And if no buyer shows up? Plan C: quietly shut the doors.
There is now a glut of small businesses hitting the market, but not nearly enough buyers with the cash, courage, or caffeine tolerance to take them on. It’s a buyer’s market – and for many, it’s more a “closing down sale” than a “golden handshake.”
But here’s where things get interesting: more and more Boomer business owners are thinking about legacy. Not just a nice payout, but leaving something behind that matters. Something their name can stay attached to, even if their daily involvement ends with an afternoon nap and a round of golf.
Some explore employee ownership schemes. Others mentor younger entrepreneurs. A few even morph their businesses into social enterprises – because if you’ve survived 30 years of BAS statements, you can probably handle a governance board too.
This isn’t just a business story – in regional Australia, it’s a community one. Out there, the retiring Boomer isn’t just a business owner – they are the local newsagent, the hardware store, the only person who knows how to fix the old tractor.
When they go, whole communities feel the loss. The most extreme example might be GPs who keep their clinic open well into their 70s simply because they find closing down would be an inexcusable hit for the local community.
The next decade, then, is less about retiring and more about reshaping. Boomers are slowly shifting roles — from boss to mentor, from owner to advisor, from the one doing everything to the one who (finally) gets to say, “that’s someone else’s problem now”.
Many Boomers, especially in knowledge-driven businesses, won’t fully retire. They’ll just scale back, trim their hours and still “pop in” every second day to make sure the new team isn’t wrecking the joint.
Letting go is hard when the joint is you, when the business itself is the legacy.
Just how big is the issue of losing Baby Boomer owned businesses? Quite large as it turns out. The 2021 Census provides us with detailed information about 12 million people that make up the Australian workforce (that number rose to over 14 million by now).
Over 10.1 million Australians work as employees for someone else’s business or organisation. Almost 1.7 million Australians are their own boss.
Almost one million of these business owners are sole traders, meaning they don’t employ any staff and manage their business by themselves (maybe with the occasional unofficial help of a spouse or family member).
This leaves 695,000 Australians who own and manage a business that employs at least one staff member.
Many industries rely on sole traders to fill employment gaps, have a look how many sole traders your industry is likely to lose in the coming decade.
We are looking at a concept again that I introduced in an earlier column, the retirement cliff. We measure what share of workers are already of retirement age (65+) and what share is nearing retirement age – meaning they are 55-64 years old and will fall of the proverbial retirement cliff in about a decade.
Remember that we are basing our analysis on Census data from 2021 – by now the issue is already much more pressing.
As the chart below shows, the looming lack of sole traders will hit Agriculture really hard.
Expect endless farm mergers and much more mechanisation to counter that trend. Industries towards the top of the chart are well advised to heavily invest into AI, automation, and robotics now to soften the blow. Will we be able to encourage enough new talent to fill the gaps the retiring sole trader Boomers leave behind?
Sole trader businesses often don’t lend themselves to being sold. A tradie running their own business might be able to sell of tools and machinery but it’s unclear how valuable their client database might be to a younger tradie trying to become their own boss.
This is a very different story when we look at businesses that employ staff. Often those businesses have intrinsic value attractive to prospective buyers.
On the top of the chart, we see a common story of farmers not being able to keep the business within the family because the kids have other career plans. Farmers then hold on to the business for as long as they can stomach the hard physical tasks. Eventually these family farms get sold and consolidated.
This means fewer workers are needed to get the same (or better) yield. In the process small farming communities see an outflow of population and bit by bit certain services become financially unviable. Slowly the lifeblood gets sucked out of these communities unless new populations are attracted to the area.
This trend needn’t be a depressing story. For younger (prospective) business owners this is a decade of big opportunities. If you own a business already, buy up Baby Boomer businesses like there is no tomorrow.
Of course, due diligence still matters – but the opportunities are real. Increase your market share. As time goes on, more low-ball offers will be successful as Baby Boomers become increasingly keen to part with their business. This truly is the golden decade for business brokers.
As Baby Boomer business owners edge toward retirement, it’s time to start asking some hard questions about succession.
Many of these businesses were built from scratch– some before the Internet was even a thing – and now risk vanishing simply because there’s no formal plan in place.
Family Business Australia reckons around 70 per cent of family firms lack a documented succession strategy. That’s not just a missed opportunity; it’s an economic risk, especially in regional Australia where these businesses often anchor local communities. But there’s also a silver lining here.
Younger entrepreneurs – tech-savvy, purpose-driven, and full of ideas – stand ready to take the reins. With the right handover, we could see these businesses thrive for another generation. That future just needs a bit of planning today.
Simon Kuestenmacher is a co-founder of The Demographics Group. His columns, media commentary and public speaking focus on current socio-demographic trends and how these impact Australia. His podcast, Demographics Decoded, explores the world through the demographic lens. Follow Simon on Twitter (X), Facebook, or LinkedIn.
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