America's older workers face job crisis
A new study says America's elderly are in a tough spot when it comes to finding work, and that's leaving many of them vulnerable. Jeff Tyler reports.
Older workers at a computer (iStockphoto)
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Tess Vigeland: As bad as the job market is for everybody right now, it's particularly hard for seniors. There are now about two million unemployed people over the age of 55. That is double the number from a year ago. A study released today shows just how dire the situation is for America's older workers. And Marketplace's Jeff Tyler has the details.
JEFF TYLER: The study was conducted by Experience Works, a nonprofit organization that trains older workers. It surveyed 2000 low-income job-seekers over the age of 55. According to president Cynthia Metzler, many participants live in desperation.
CYNTHIA Metzler: We have so many people -- close to 46 percent -- that when they came to us, they felt that if they hadn't gotten employment through us, they would have faced homelessness.
Seniors reported having to chose between paying rent and buying medicine. Their job searches often take a year, about double the time it takes younger workers to find employment.
After she lost her job at an auto supplier in Michigan, 58-year-old Kat Brown was out of work for two-and-a-half years.
KAT Brown: We wound up, my husband and I, having to sell personal belongings, family antiques. We were able to keep the bills up for quite a long time. But eventually, the strain of that sort of fractured my marriage, and we went through a divorce.
She found a job with Experience Works, where she now helps train other seniors.
Brown: A lot of seniors have never touched a computer. You can not apply for a job nowadays without basic computer skills.
She says older workers who haven't reached retirement age are particularly vulnerable.
Brown: I am seeing more and more people between the ages of 55 and 62, who can not even collect early Social Security, with advanced degrees, who can not find work.
Seniors may need to work because they've outlived their savings. Or the stock market ate their retirement money. Again, Cynthia Metzler.
Metzler: The people that we surveyed don't anticipate retiring.
Seniors who don't want to retire, but can't find a job, risk depression, or even suicide. Advocates say more funding is needed for counseling and re-training.
In Los Angeles, I'm Jeff Tyler for Marketplace.
Comments
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From Richardson, TX, 09/23/2009
When government "unemployment" numbers DO NOT count the MAJORITY of PEOPLE LOOKING FOR WORK - and that is the case. Then we only can conclude that our government is perfectly happy to LIE to us. Those who are unemployed know this - and it builds a DEEP CYNICISM among everyone else.
Our Friendly Government needs to stop lying about the real unemployment numbers and start giving out accurate information.
From Phoenix, AZ, 09/22/2009
We need a low cost social capital and networking stimulus to bring people with complementary skills, resources, and experiences together to form new businesses and ventures.
The founding of Google, Apple Computer, and Microsoft by teams of people points to the underutilized model of interpersonal collaboration as an economically viable way to create jobs.
For example, it would be great if universities could help seniors team up with students and recent graduates.
From Charlotte, NC, 09/22/2009
Jeff:
You omitted a very important point. Those 'early retirees' (50-63 set) are mostly not counted in government statistics. The fallacy is that we have left our jobs on our own volition (true) and are not seeking work (FALSE!). I left IBM when I hit the 30 year mark as promotion and reasonable increases were not on the plate. Age discrimination lives. It is only a logical assumption that one could take a sabitical of a year or so and expect to be able to find like employment -- like status, like pay, like benefits -- after all you've got 30 years experiance at THE blue chip firm.
False also -- a resume writing expert told me to avoid indicating my age. Pretty tough thing to do if you have thirty-seven years of work experiance to log in ones resume or employment applications. But worst of all is that we are not included officially. Since we cannot apply for unemployment benefits we do not count in public unemployment statistics. I think that anyone who professes that they are seeking employment needs to be so included so we can really know how bad things are. By the present contrivance, a significant segment is cloked. So long as we lie to ourselves at the baselines we cannot hope to succeed. We need to pull ourselves out of this aspect of denial and deal openly with its consequences.
Greg Johnson
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