Pundits have been telling corporate America for years that the Baby Boomers will soon create a “retirement tsunami”. But there’s one small problem – the pundits are wrong. As it turns out, there are far fewer than the much-touted “78 million Baby Boomers poised for retirement”. In fact, the growth rate in both the number of new retirees and the total number of retired persons will be less than 3 to 4 percent each year for the next 25 years – and could even be zero.

The pundits forgot several factors. They forgot that Baby Boomers were actually born over an 18-year stretch, so they won’t all retire together; that many Boomers are already retired; that many of the older Boomers will die before the younger ones retire; and that pre-Boomers and Boomers alike started delaying their retirements over a decade ago – a trend that will likely accelerate in the years ahead. Most importantly, they forgot to actually run the calculations on a year-by-year basis, given all of the above factors.

We did run the numbers, and an entirely different picture emerges versus the one painted by the pundits. The number of “true retirees” – i.e., excluding those who never worked in the first place – will reach only 46 million in 2017 if the trend to work longer stops shifting today. A more probable scenario, in which more older Americans choose to work longer, produces less than 36 million true retirees in 2017. However, there are already over 35 million “true retirees” today. That’s right – there would be essentially no growth.

Not surprisingly, a change of this magnitude takes some time to sink in. Therefore, many of the implications for managers may not be apparent for some time. However, it’s already clear that this change brings important ramifications for managers of all kinds.

For general managers or marketers, if your product depends heavily on a person’s retiring, or on the activities of retirees, it’s time to re-think your strategies. For example, take the financial services industry, which has invested billions in products and advertising targeted at retirees. (Remember all those ads you’ve seen recently positioning various banks, IRA providers and insurance companies as “the retirement company”?) This industry faces overcapacity and intense competition. Similarly, if your company makes golf clubs, hobby equipment, gardening supplies, boats, or any other products that help fill the leisure hours of seniors, it’s time to re-think. You’re in the same predicament if your company provides leisure services or if you run a restaurant chain frequented by seniors (since working seniors eat out less often than retirees). And obviously, if you run a real estate company that develops retirement communities, it’s time to re-think.

Beyond these specifically affected industries, the ramifications for human resources managers everywhere could be profound. First, people’s desire to continue working potentially creates an entirely new labor pool – but one in which the usual techniques for screening applicants will need to change. Further, attracting and retaining such workers could require significantly different options in employee benefits. For example, the post-age-65 worker will not be attracted by health benefits that include pre- and post-natal care and pediatric care, but may respond to contributions to long-term health care policies. And, it may not be as expensive to provide certain health benefits for post-age-65 workers, because of Medicare; therefore, financial headroom for other benefits may be available.

Indeed, any manager could potentially be affected. If you’re waiting for your boss to retire so you can get that long-awaited promotion, you may need to re-think your time frame. Conversely, if you have Baby Boomers below you, you may be glad or sad to hear that they plan to remain in the job longer than you expected. If you have an underperforming older subordinate, and were hoping to simply let the situation slide until his/her retirement, you may have to actually deal with the situation explicitly rather than simply let time take its course.

Lastly, boardroom strategists will be forced to reflect on the political changes that spring from fewer-than-expected retirees. There may be just as many older Americans as previously expected , but a smaller portion of them will be retired. Political attitudes toward a variety of issues, from Social Security to local taxes for schools, usually shift when someone reaches retirement, and one can only guess what changes might develop in the nation’s political preferences.

A catchy concept can capture the attention of the business community but oversimplify a complex reality. Only time will tell how well the business community responds to the more complex truth – that the so-called “retirement tsunami” will never actually hit the shore.

Kevin P. Coyne is a Senior Teaching Professor at the Goizueta Business School at Emory University and a former senior partner at McKinsey & Company. Shawn T. Coyne is a management consultant with 25 years of experience in marketing strategy and organizational leadership. Together, they form The Coyne Partnership, Inc., an executive counseling firm. Further information regarding their new study, “Smaller Than You Thought: Estimates Of The Future Size And Growth Rate Of The Retirement Market In The United States”, can be found at www.thecoynepartnership.com.