Mar 10 2009
Older Job Seekers are Coming Back Into the Workforce en Masse & are Facing Tougher Hurdles:
Older Job Seekers are Coming Back Into the Workforce en Masse & are Facing Tougher Hurdles:
By Marc Chamot
Job hunting is tough in these economical times, but for older job seekers is even tougher. I should know, because I am one of these over fifty, unemployed and amongst the crowd that’s just getting by.
Take Los Gatos resident Doug Horan 62, with degrees in physics and business administration, he has applied for more than 1,000 jobs over the past 18 months, with the usual call back line “you don’t fit with our scheme of things.” Does this sound familiar?
It’s tough getting older, but being older and unemployed is even tougher, and as the days go by we’re not getting any younger. The bias on older workers is so pervasive all around this country and it’s finally showing.
We are all part of a new economic social reality that is afflicting this country. With the way the market has become, many older folks have lost their nest eggs and home values.
There is a sea change of economic barometers out there that’s basically showing how bad things really are. Tim Driver, founder of retirementjobs.com, an online career site for people over 50, in 2006. He has seen traffic hit through the roof lately! It has seen traffic triple, from the usual 250,000 last July to 715,000 in February. Driver said that, “The economy is driving the largest shift in the makeup of the workforce since women went to work en masse in the seventies.”
The percentage of workers ages 65 and older in the labor force climbed to 17.3 percent in 2008 from 12 percent a decade ago. 78 million baby boomers, those born between 1946 to1964, turned 62 last year.
Jack VanDerhei, research director of the Employee Benefit research Institute in Washington, who has analyzed 401K’s, account balances for 22 million baby boomers, concluded that, “the vast majority of the people do not have enough savings to get out the workforce at age 65.”
Most elderly Americans have watched their life savings and home values decline by more than 30 percent. Older folks are now coming out to compete with 20 and 30 year olds for what ever available jobs. And of course, who do you think will get hired first under that scenario?
Some like me, have given up looking for jobs; we want to become enterprising business owners or blog writers, and keep hoping that something will pay-off along the way. Employers need to shift their thinking a little bit out there, they should look at us as an asset, laden with knowledge and wealth of experiences that no 20 or 30 year old will ever have. “They’re just wet behind the ears just as I used to be told when I was their age.”
Unfortunately for us older folks, “you’re over qualified for the position,” is a common phrase heard over, and over again, while we’re being denied employment opportunities.
But really, no matter what we do, or on how we go about doing it, there is still that resilience and savvy in us older folks, that will make the younger ones envy with jealous.
Source: Older job-seekers face special hurdles
Julian Guthrie, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, March 9, 2009
