Sep 21, 2010 01:51 AM
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Unemployment
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Unemployment
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Unemployment
The recession and its aftermath have already pushed down some older workers. In figures released last week by the Census Bureau, the poverty rate among those 55 to 64 increased to 9.4 percent in 2009, from 8.6 percent in 2007. Since the economic collapse, there are not enough jobs being created for the American population as a whole, much less for those in the twilight of their careers. Of the 14.9 million unemployed, more than 2.2 million are 55 or older. Nearly half of them have been unemployed six months or longer, according to the Labor Department. The unemployment rate in the group -7.3 percent - is at a record, more than double what it was at the beginning of the latest recession.
After other recent downturns, older people who lost jobs worried about how long it would take to return to the work force and also that they might never recover their former incomes. The truth is that it will take years to absorb the giant pool of unemployed at the economy’s recent pace, many of these older people may simply age out of the labor force before their luck changes. Being unemployed at any age can be crushing. But older workers suspect their résumés often get shoved aside in favor of those from younger workers. Others discover that their job-seeking skills - as well as some technical skills sought by employers - are rusty after years of working for the same company. The most recent recession has increased the need to extend working life. Home values, often a family’s most important asset, have been battered.
Older workers who lose their jobs could pose a policy problem if they lose their ability to be self-sufficient. “That’s what we should be worrying about,” said Carl E. Van Horn, professor of public policy and director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University, “what it means to this class of the new unemployables, people who have been cast adrift at a very vulnerable part of their career and their life.” Forced early retirement imposes an intense financial strain, particularly for those at lower incomes.
But even middle-class people who might skate by on savings or a spouse’s income are jarred by an abrupt end to working life and to a secure retirement. Patricia Reid is 57 and four years ago she lost her job. In her darkest moments she knows that she might never find work again. College educated, with a degree in business administration, she is experienced, having worked for two decades as an internal auditor and analyst at Boeing before losing that job. For Ms. Reid, it has been four years of hunting — without a single job offer. She buzzes energetically as she describes the countless applications she has lobbed through the Internet, as well as the online courses she is taking to burnish her software skills. Most of her days are now spent in front of a laptop, in a lighthouse garret in the house that her husband, Denny Mielock, built in the 1990s on a breathtaking piece of property.
