Older Workers Are Out Of Work Longer

A lot of people have been forced to find a new job lately

. The past recession generated a lot of layoffs because of a slow economy. The latest employment figures have seemed to offer some good news, and the general rate of unemployment may be going down a little. But the rate of unemployed people, who have been out of work for a long time, actually seems to be growing. It does not seem like all of our unemployment problems have ended yet.

One group of people that seems to be having a really hard time are older workers. Unemployed folks, over age 55, seem to be having the hardest time finding new jobs after a layoff. Research shows that profession or education level do not matter as much as age in this case. Why are older folks having such a tough time finding a new job? After all, many middle age workers and professionals have been at the job for many years. They should bring a lot of experience and knowledge to an interview table.

Why can't many middle aged workers find new jobs? There is probably more than one reason for this problem. It could be that young adults are more flexible and mobile.They might simply have more current job skills. Younger workers could even be a little less picky. Since older folks may have been working for a long time, they may expect a higher salary, or better benefits, than the market supports right now.

Hiring managers could even be reluctant to hire older people. They may think younger folks are easier to manage, have more energy, and come with more current job skills. Lots of older job seekers claim that this is true. Age discrimination has even made it to the news. It is called the "Gray Wall".

People who have been out of work for over a year are considered the long term unemployed. If you take all of the people over fifty-five, who are unemployed, over forty percent have been out of work for longer than a year. A large percentage of these laid of workers are having a very hard time sliding into new jobs.

There are several serious problems for people who have been out of work a long time. They may lose their edge when it comes to having current job skills. Technology changes so quickly these days that a year can be a very long time. When a person is out of work for a long time, they may be more prone to depression, or at least a loss of confidence. It could also hurt job skills. Finally, this situation has got to be tough on people's retirement savings. They may be depleting their retirement funds in order to live, and they probably are not adding new funds if they have no income.

Unemployed people have gotten a lot of attention. In my opinion, we should pay particular attention to people who have been out of work for a year or more, and we should also pay attention to older people who are unemployed. Since many older people have had the same job for decades, they probably also need to work on their current job searching abilities..

by: Marilyn Katz

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