I have long argued that the notion of some huge, across-the-board shortage of workers and talents due to the retirement of the 76 million-strong baby-boom generation is wildly overblown and overhyped.

Not everyone agrees with me, of course, but I do think lot of people feel the way I do: Today’s workers are healthier, happier, more engaged and are going to stay on the job a lot longer than their parents and grandparents did.

But in case you need proof that the coming talent shortage is actually a myth, consider this new evidence (which, admittedly, is more about economic necessity than engagement, health or happiness): The current economic downturn is causing many workers who were thinking of taking early retirement to reassess their plans.

A recent story in The Wall Street Journal noted that “according to economists and demographers, a huge exodus from the workforce should be happening. … But it has run into a brick wall. Investment advisers and retirement planners at more than a dozen firms, including Charles Schwab Corp., Edward Jones and Merrill Lynch & Co., say they are seeing large numbers of older workers put off retirement as the housing and stock-market troubles have deepened.”

In fact, the Journal story points out that as boomers delay leaving the workforce, a very different problem may surface: more competition for jobs with younger workers.

 “However, there is a potential upside,” the Journal story noted. “People who earn more as they age may rely less on Social Security, easing the burden on these programs—including Medicare—and keeping them solvent for longer. The trend could also be good news for ‘knowledge-based industries,’ such as technology, science and health care, which are predicted to suffer from a drain of experienced workers.”

My point all along has been that the baby boomers have never been predictable or acted in ways that the “experts” expected. And as I have written, “Yes, we are facing some large demographic changes in the workforce, and businesses need to plan for them, but all the gloom-and-doom talk of a giant worker shortage may just end up being more myth than reality.”