None of the above statements is in dispute. However, the tumultuous start of the Millennium -- innovations in technology choreographing where and how we do our jobs -- not to mention the Great Recession, have all changed the conversation about retirement and contributed to some surprising trends in the work force.

Consider some interesting research findings:

• A recent study commissioned by staffing giant Robert Half surveyed a random sampling of chief financial officers (CFOs) across industries among the top labor markets around the country. Acknowledging the eye-popping statistic that roughly 20% of the U.S. labor force has passed or is approaching retirement age – the lion's share of them Baby Boomers – nearly two-thirds of the financial executives interviewed appear unconcerned about the mass exodus from the market, despite the knowledge and skills these individuals have accumulated and contributed to organizations over decades.

In part, this may be due to the theory that a sizable portion of these workers may be looking to stay on with their companies in a consulting capacity. Or perhaps the CFOs see the trend as a generational passing of the torch to a younger and more productive work force.

The executives who did express concern over losing seasoned employees to retirement worried about sacrificing established "leadership" and "legacy knowledge" as important components of their corporate teams, above other suggested issues they'd be facing with Boomers retiring.

• While the nation has been struggling to crawl out from under the Great Recession and long-term joblessness remains a major concern, the nation's unemployment rate has been statistically falling – now hovering at around 6.5% nationally. As has been widely acknowledged, this is not due so much to a huge uptick in jobs being added to the economy, but to a 35-year low in the labor force participation rate of working-age individuals who either have or are actively looking for a job (according to figures released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS). But what's now coming to light and raising eyebrows in the HR world is just who is leading the exodus. According to the BLS data, more offspring of Baby Boomers have been exiting the workforce than their parents since 2000, and particularly since the onset of the recession.

While labor participation rates in the 25-54 age group have actually been falling, those among the graying 55-64-year-old population are, somewhat unexpectedly, on the rise.

While perhaps more surprising than the laissez-faire attitude of corporate executives toward losing their long-time employees, there's no shortage of possible explanations for this "reverse trend" in work force gains and losses – from the seismic shift in retirement programs from defined-benefit pensions plans to defined-contribution programs since the 1980s; to huge fluctuations in stock and bond holdings since the recession; to the desire of older workers to stay employed and active and the fact that, the longer job seekers are unemployed, the harder it becomes for them to become reemployed.

All plausible arguments, and there are more where those came from. But we shall save them for another conversation.