When I was laid off last summer, I was one of five people laid off, all over the age of 40, four out of five of which were over 50. It was quite simply a question of jettisoning higher compensation, since all but two of those who remained are also over 50. I was also phenomenally lucky to have even marginal experience in the quirky hybrid of IT and clinical research in which I am now working and to be out of work at exactly the same time as a company here in New Jersey was building a staff. But the fact remains that I had well over a dozen interviews for Web site development/management jobs, all of them with people far younger than I am, not one of which went anywhere no matter how well the interview went. I'm lucky, especially since I put my college graduation date back on my resume during that job hunt, deciding that if a company was going to rule me out because of my age anyway, I wasn't about to waste my time talking to them.
I first ran into the age issue during an interview for a Web development job at a television network in 1999, when I was a mere whippersnapper of 45. The HR interview was going along swimmingly, with the recruiter grinning and friendly, until the "chat" started to turn to cultural references and questions that only someone over 40 would readily get. Once I was able to explain what a slide rule was, his demeanor changed and even though I was sent on to the Web managers, I knew the interview was already over -- a suspicion confirmed when on the way out the door I was told that I wasn't a "good fit" for the position.
Until this recession, many over-40 workers who found themselves out of work and unable to get past the 25-year-old HR reps asking then where they want to be in five years (I answered this question in my interview at my current job as "alive, healthy, and employed") either got real estate licenses or started small service businesses as pet sitters or personal chefs or errand runners. But with real estate in the crapper, and fewer people able to afford extra help even if they are still working, it's getting even more difficult for the over-50 set to rebound after a layoff:
Assessing just how pervasive age discrimination is in the job market is difficult. Certainly, older workers believe that it is rampant — an AARP survey in 2007 of workers ages 45 to 74 found that 60 percent said they had seen or experienced age bias.
Joanna N. Lahey, an economics professor at Texas A&M University, conducted a study published in 2005 in which she sent out 4,000 résumés on behalf of hypothetical job-seeking women ranging in age from 35 to 62 for entry-level jobs at companies in Boston and St. Petersburg, Fla. She changed only the applicant’s high school graduation year, an age indicator. Dr. Lahey found that workers under 50 were more than 40 percent more likely to be called for an interview.
Older workers often accumulate knowledge specific to their companies that helps protect them from layoffs, Dr. Lahey said. But that background is often less useful to other employers.
Older workers must also battle stereotypes about their energy and adaptability, as well as the reality that their health care costs are higher.
The oldest baby boomers have already begun retiring. But with retirement accounts plunging in value, more older workers than ever are trying to stay in the work force. And some unemployed boomers, frustrated after months of fruitless searching, have concluded that their only option is to turn their backs on successful careers and start over at much lower pay.
[snip]
Jonathan Steinberg, 53, a former marketing executive, has been out of work for more than two years. With a résumé that includes an undergraduate degree from Yale and an M.B.A. from New York University, he had a career on a steady upward progression. His most recent position was senior vice president for communications and marketing at a large organization for the care of the elderly, where he was paid about $170,000 a year.
But after applying for more than 100 jobs and getting few responses, he is now exploring work as a paralegal or a teacher. He believes that his age and experience make for slim odds of landing even a junior-level marketing position at this point.
“I’ve got one to send to college next year, with two more behind her,” Mr. Steinberg said of his children. “I can’t continue to wait for good news on the old job front.”
I don't know where I'd be if I hadn't received the offer for my current job, or what I'd do if, say, we were acquired and I was one of those jettisoned. We would be in better shape than many of our peers because we live frugally and have savings -- and no children to feed and clothe or put through college. But we still have ten years left on even our modest mortgage (no equity loans), and property taxes go up $500 every year, and while we can probably get 100,000 miles out of each of our two compact cars, we are already over 50,000 miles on each of them. And if you eat up your savings before "retirement", what then? Sell your house? To whom? And where do you live then? And once your equity is gone on month-to-month expenses, what then?
It's astounding how quickly we turn around and find ourselves on the shady side of 50. If there was ever a generation that believed it would never happen to us, it's the one I was born into. And of course for those who burnt themselves out in their 20's and died, it didn't. But unless you die in your 30's or early 40's, it DOES happen to you. I managed to be laid off before everything went completely to hell and rebound quickly. There are no guarantees that, when today's younger workers are where I am now, it won't look exactly like it does today.
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