

For the Unemployed Over 50, Fears of Never Working Again - bootload
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/business/economy/20older.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

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abalashov
I would agree with d2viant; the most threatening element of a resume is the
conception of longevity we inherited from the 20th century social compact of
loyalty between eager beavers and large corporations.

My work history is peppered mostly with companies of less than 20 people, and
a good chunk of it at companies under 10. However, the job or two I have had
-- and the interactions I've had with comparable consulting clients -- in
places structurally describable as "enterprise" left me with an enormous
appreciation of how differently a lot of the labour force there operates. Most
of the people I worked with were strict 9-to-5ers of average intelligence who,
over time, became highly knowledgeable, deeply entrenched maintenance experts
in various legacy systems the company had, which in many cases dated back to
the late 1980s; ROI is ROI. They were quite valuable to those companies,
operationally.

However, they had been there 9, 10, 15, 20 years; they had virtually no
transferrable skill sets whatsoever. When that technology does (did) go, so
will their jobs, and they will (do) have an extremely difficult time finding
another job in a competitive technology market at any place that does not
specifically use those systems. Even the folks who played more generally
applicable roles like accounts payable analysis, audits, marketing, etc. often
became idiosyncratic domain specialists in _that very company_ 's very
particular business process and very particular product and customer domain in
ways that seemed to call into doubt their ability to shift into an analogous
role in another place in time and space.

The zeitgeist of 1950-1990 at General Electric or Ford Motor Co. has passed;
it's not coming back, I fear. If there's any advice I can give to people today
so that they don't end up in this situation when they're 50, it's that you
have to embrace this "up or out" approach we talk about so much here. Unless
you're willingly headed toward management and significant increases in
compensation, preferably short-term and relatively liquid, you _need_ to get
out after a few years. When I say management, I really do mean management; one
of the pathologies I have seen a lot is to give people of the above specimen
doing the same kind of grunt work year-on-year managerial-sounding titles to
justify further salary increases, but whose jobs still consist of procedures
and processes that suffer from the above-mentioned liabilities.

But anyway, the company will not take care of you. Company does not care.
Probably will not be around forever anyway, at least not in the present form
that has any relevance to you whatsoever.

~~~
matrix
My experience is similar to yours, and your observations are absolutely spot
on.

I'm always a little suspicious of anyone who has the job title "Project
Manager".

------
d2viant
Unless you're on the fast track through management, working within the same
company for two decades guarantees that you will have difficulty finding a job
at another company should the need arise. Especially in companies like Boeing,
where titles such as Internal Auditor and Analyst mean you are essentially a
drone doing tasks that do not require critical thinking (I speak from
experience).

People need to rethink this undue loyalty they have been giving to companies
in exchange for a meager pension after 30 years. At some point you need to
look out for yourself, your skills and your future employability outside of
the company. Perform well at your job, demand the upfront compensation you
deserve and take responsibility for your own career...don't leave it in the
hands of a large company bureaucracy.

~~~
lsc
>this undue loyalty they have been giving to companies in exchange for a
meager pension after 30 years.

I don't know about the private sector, but public sector pensions seem
generous to me. Especially if you take the first 'early retirement' plan you
can get on, if you live for an above-average period of time, it's really quite
a lot of cash. Did you know that after you retire and start drawing a
government pension you can go back to work in a different department (while
drawing your first pension and a paycheck) and if you stay in that new
department for a specified number of years, you can retire again, and draw two
pensions? Also, your pension is a percentage of your salary... your salary
when you retire, not an average of your salary.

That's always been my backup plan, anyhow... if it didn't look like I was
going to do ok as a business person by the time I was 30 or so (we're down to
a month, and I'd say it looks like I'm doing okay. Not great, but okay.) the
plan was to get a government job with a pension.

Really, it makes little sense to work for the government when you are young.
your pension is calculated based on your age _and_ your years of service, so
as far as pension contributions go, years you put in while older earn more
pension, and entry-level salaries for most government jobs usually suck
compared to the same position in the private sector. so it makes sense to work
in the private sector, gain experience and take advantage of the quicker ramp-
up in wages while you are young, then at some point switch to a public sector
job with a pension as you get older.

Now, personally I'm relieved that it looks like I'll be able to make it on my
own. I don't really think I have the temperament for public-sector work. But
economically speaking, it looks like my backup plan, which is to say, working
in the private sector while young and the public sector while old is basically
sound.

but you do have a good point that staying in one place for 20 years is going
to, uh, limit your options when it comes time to move around. I'm just saying,
the pensions the public sector kicks out, at least here in California, and
assuming you live for a while after you retire, make their total compensation
packages look pretty attractive for people capable of that sort of work.

~~~
btmorex
Well, you're betting that government pensions will stay the same (or get
better) over the next 20 or so years. That seems to me like a very bad bet to
take. California is basically bankrupt from paying government worker pensions
(among other reasons). What makes you think those programs will continue?

Private industry is pretty much devoid of pensions for new workers now and my
best guess is that government isn't very far away from that.

~~~
lsc
>Private industry is pretty much devoid of pensions for new workers now and my
best guess is that government isn't very far away from that.

You may very well be correct. I think it depends on how long and deep this
recession is, and how much debt we are willing to take on to support the
public sector workers and unions.

My point was just that, at least for people retiring now, the pension doesn't
seem 'meager' - if you can get the deal the people retiring now are getting,
it seems like pretty good deal. (Though yes, I don't know if if that will be
possible in the future.)

------
sbov
This story reminds me a bit of my girlfriend's dad.

He worked for a defense contractor as a designer. At the time, everything was
done freehand. He got laid off in the early 90's and these jobs pretty much
dried up, then started to return 5 or so years later. However, everything was
now being done with computers and he couldn't get a job in the field.

He has worked minimum wage jobs ever since.

I feel lucky that in software development I can keep on top of technology
trends even if I were unemployed. That is how it has played out so far at
least, but will it always? When will the next breakthrough, that which turns
the working world on its head, arrive? Hopefully long after I retire, lest I
miss the boat like so many did in the past.

So far this field generally produces the things that which drive its own
productivity, which means by nature I have had an advantage of understanding
new tools moreso than other fields may. I have a hard time callously telling
these people they must adapt or die because I recognize that adaptation is
being pressured upon them by a field foreign to their practice. Its like your
boss coming in tomorrow and telling you that your future employability is
based upon your ability to understand why 14 year olds are all ga-ga over
Robert Pattinson.

And if you're reading this and don't know who that is, I expect your
resignation by the end of the day.

~~~
asmithmd1
I worked in that field thru the 1990 downturn. Before 1990 draftsman/designer
job postings would ask for a lettering sample. I was laid off from an ink on
vellum design shop but luckily had a buddy who was still at college and had
access to a machine with AutoCad ($5000 in hardware and software in 1990). I
visited him for a weekend and worked thru a teach yourself book and was then
able to pass simple interview tests.

I was lucky to have access to a machine to train myself and young enough that
I was still looking for an entry level position.

~~~
jsymolon
And that's the best reason why tech schools/retraining should be offered as a
part of unemployment. (See Clinton's "The Daily Show"'s interview.

If I can go and get very specific training to get my skills up to snuff - I
consider that valuable and a benefit to society.

------
ojbyrne
"Of the 14.9 million unemployed, more than 2.2 million are 55 or older."

So 15% of all unemployed are over 55. That doesn't seem that excessive. If we
assumed that the labor force is uniformly distributed (which it probably
isn't) from 20 to 65, the expected number is 3.3 million.

~~~
gamble
And the unemployment rate for that group is 2% lower than the overall rate.
This story hams up the emotional manipulation, but the statistics it presents
make it look like this group is _better off_.

~~~
ultrasaurus
I wonder if it's because this group is over-represented in the deciding-who-
gets-hired-or-fired group.

------
exit
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee>

~~~
yummyfajitas
I'd much prefer a basic job guarantee. Instead of just giving out free money,
taken from the productive, the government is obligated to give a basic job to
all comers.

That job could take many forms - cleaning courthouses and prisons for the
unskilled, DMV clerk for the skilled. But it is important that the job be
unpleasant and low paid, so that people have an incentive to seek more useful
jobs in the private sector.

Basic jobs fulfills the same goals as basic income (no one is destitute) while
reducing the disincentives to work that basic income creates.

~~~
gmlk
(1) Being payed is not equivalent with being productive

There is a whole lot of work being done by the so called unemployed which
really needs to be done but for which no-one is going to pay them. If anything
open source should have proven is that while there is a lot of valuable work
to be done, no-one is willing to pay for it being done, especially not in the
startup phase when it's not even clear what you are working on. Fundamental
work is often overlooked because it only becomes clear how to make it
profitable after it is made.

Many people are payed while they are totally unproductive, while many of the
most productive people are not payed any more, often even a lot less, then the
unproductive people. Crap often sells better then quality work.

(2) Full employment is an illusion

There will never be 100% employment, more and more people will find themselves
unable to find employment. Currently there is no safety net for the self-
employed.

(3) An unconditional basic income is about basic freedom and what this means
in the 21th century.

With an unconditional basic income we take worrying about survival of the
table. Survival is something that should not be a worry in the civilized
world. A basic income is a general safety net for any mishap, misfortune and
plain bad luck than could happen to anyone.

(4) An unconditional basic income is about human dignity.

Giving people options that they don't have today: The freedom to quite an
unhealthy, low paying, dead-end job and to look for something worth doing.
Even if this is something like developing open source software, or some other
creative endeavor.In the end more value is created even if no-one was told to
do it.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Regarding 2) and 3), my proposed "Basic Job" provides that. Everyone will be
eligible for the Basic Job, including the formerly self employed and the
unlucky, and no one needs to worry about survival.

As for 1) and 4), you seem to believe that there are a huge number of budding
Linus Torvald's out in the world, being held down by their corporate 9-5 job.
I think that's bunk.

If you think I'm wrong, you should be able to prove it easily. Many people do
have some variant on basic income: NYC teachers in the rubber rooms, auto
workers in the no-job banks, not to mention the vast European welfare class.
Could you point out to me some contributions to the open source world from
such people?

~~~
gmlk
No, not everyone does things that makes them famous. To be productive does not
require one to either get payed or be famous, one can be quite productive and
still not get payed enough and at the same time remain nearly anonymous.

Still, people like to do stuff they are passionate about?

The only thing that kills passion is struggling to survive. Scarcity
eliminates options, reduces freedom, and it forces people to go into a
survival mode, leaning powerlessness. Nothing good can come from this. People
who struggle to survive will not have the time or energy to look for better
employment or to build their own business.

To have a purpose without resources does not realize much. And if all your
time is wasted to survive nothing gets done. People often confuse scarcity
with necessity? Something might be very necessary but without sufficient
resources innovation is impossible. Necessity is the _father_ of invention and
_abundance_ is her mother?

History shows that shared abundance gives peace, freedom, and individual
autonomy Abundance with purpose gave us enlightenment, abundance with
necessity gave us innovation.

------
prodigal_erik
We ought to have a basic income, or at least retraining and job placement
that's actually effective. When the country has a surplus of housing stock,
threatening her with homelessness is a ridiculously cruel penalty for her
inability to personally deduce what our wacky economy wants more of.

~~~
yummyfajitas
You know, if she wants to postpone homelessness, she could also sell her
"breathtaking piece of property overlooking the sound" with a "lighthouse
garret atop the house" and move into a studio apt near a bigger city.

~~~
bsaunder
I'm not sure she and her husband would make it past a credit/employment check
to satisfy a landlord.

~~~
yummyfajitas
On a 12 month lease, landlords tend to accept a bank statement showing $18x
monthly rent in lieu of good credit/employment. Assuming the Seattle area is
just as expensive as the NY area, she would only need to have $18k equity in
the house to meet that bar.

------
pmorici
I can sympathize with the fact that times are difficult but at the same time
what does this prototypical worker expect? It sounds like they've been
plugging away at an essentially entry level job for 20 years and now they are
shocked it's hard to find new work.

I think people's problem is that they are refusing to adjust to the reality of
the times. Namely that they need to live more frugally and be more proactive
about finding a job instead of just submitting a few resumes online or taking
an online computer skills course. As if that is some kind of herculean task.

~~~
jasonlotito
I found it funny when reading the article that the lady took two trips
overseas after getting laid off, amongst other things. She didn't spend
4-years looking for a job like the article suggest ("For Ms. Reid, it has been
four years of hunting"). No. She's been unemployed for 4-years.

"Stunned and depressed, she sent out résumés, but figured she had a little
time to recover. So she took vacations to Turkey and Thailand with her
husband, who is a home repairman. She sought chiropractic treatments for a
neck injury and helped nurse a priest dying of cancer."

This also caught me by surprise: "And now, her $500-a-week unemployment
benefits have been exhausted."

That has to be wrong. Almost 4-years of unemployment? Of course...

"She has since cut back, forgoing Nordstrom shopping sprees and theater
subscriptions, but also cutting out red meat at home and putting off home
repairs."

I don't mean to sound harsh. I realize that finding a good job is nice.
However, I can only hope to learn from this and remember that it's important
to always be learning. Never rest.

------
wheaties
Older people are worried they'll be pushed aside for younger, cheaper people
with better computer skills. Younger people worry with little experience
they'll be pushed aside for older, more knowledgeable people. It's interesting
reading both sides of the aisle.

Of course this, "In four years of job hunting, Ms. Reid has discovered that
she is no longer technologically proficient." is a true telling of why it's
taking so long for some people to find work.

------
bretpiatt
I'm not certain that her issue is age related rather than geography. I find it
hard to believe that nowhere in the world in the past 4 years is there a job
opening she could fill with a MIS and 20 years of experience in audit.

767 jobs on Monster for: audit "masters degree" "information systems"

2 of those jobs are within 20 miles of Seattle, WA (Vashon is an island where
you catch a ferry and make it to your job in an hour or so in town).

We live in a global labor pool now and people have a hard time accepting that.
You may need to go to the work rather than having the option of choosing from
a number of jobs right by where you choose to live.

~~~
vaksel
sure there are...but do you think a company would want to interview someone
from 500 miles away? How much must they suck...that they have to be desperate
enough to seek a job that far away?

~~~
bretpiatt
It isn't about "sucking" or not, it is about having a specialized versus
generalized skill set. Both candidates and companies have to look outside of
their local markets to make a match the more specialized they make their
search.

We're (I work for Rackspace Hosting) constantly flying people out for
interviews from all over as we look to find the ideal person for a role. For a
company it is much more expensive to settle and hire a non-ideal candidate
over time than it is to spend some money on the interview and selection
process. The same applies even for valley based companies -- do you think
Google or Facebook have a policy of "local candidates only"?

------
hapless
I find it really offensive that the Times describes 50-60 as a "vulnerable"
time in these people's lives. That's the age of your _peak_ prosperity, when
you have the _most_ assets to liquidate for here-and-now expenses.

The centerpiece of the story was a 57 year old female from Boeing. If her
financial planning or outcomes were so poor as to leave her near-penniless at
57, she was going to be a bag lady sooner or later. It was just a matter of
time. Imagining she could save for an adequate retirement in the ten remaining
years of her career was delusional.

~~~
harshpotatoes
I don't think this piece is about a woman who is near penniless at the age of
57, but rather a woman and her husband who might be forced into retirement 10+
years sooner than they anticipated. I think most financially responsible
families would be hard pressed to make their retirement stretch an extra 10
years.

~~~
hapless
That's an equally terrible excuse. At the very least, you have to plan for the
possibility that your health will force you into retirement. As you move into
your 50s, your risk of catastrophic illness shoots upwards.

That's not to say that there aren't a lot of hale, hearty 60 year old women in
the world. It's just that one can no longer _count on_ good health. It's
important to realize this ahead of time. (In this case, this woman and her
husband are really in pretty good shape. Sure, she's not working, but at least
she is still capable of working!)

------
m0th87
For those in the telecom industry, this has been a pervasive fear since the
early 2000's. My mother has a Ph.D. from MIT, has worked at Bell Labs, and is
generally productive as hell. After the telecom bust, it took her years to
find a job. When she did, it was in another country.

She eventually did make it back here and got a job. But only after getting
another Master's degree in analytics (her 5th degree!)

------
known
I think she shouldn't expect a _white collar_ job. Better to move to
Manufacturing Industry or Agriculture sector.

------
brc
Paywall

~~~
philk
Actually a free registration. If you don't want to register you can go to
www.bugmenot.com and find a login that someone else has already made.

~~~
brc
Too much effort - the last thing I need is more newspaper spam begging me to
pay up for something I need, with no escape in sight. Maybe if I lived in NY.

~~~
jonknee
They won't email you unless you want them to. I have been registered for years
and haven't gotten one email. I've also only had to sign in once this year,
when I got a new computer. It's well worth the effort.

------
yummyfajitas
I've recently been contemplating two separate problems we have in this
country, and I think I've come up with a partial solution to both.

Problem 1: Illegal immigrants.

Problem 2: Americans who can't find a job.

This seems like a matching problem. I propose that DHS crack down hard on
employers of illegal immigrants. To solve problem 2, they must coordinate with
local unemployment agencies. DHS will arrest and deport illegal immigrants.
For each illegal thus deported, the unemployment benefits of an American
(maybe whoever has been on unemployment the longest) will be terminated and
they will be ordered to report to work at the former employer of the illegal.
Employing a formerly unemployed American will be part of the penalty for the
employer of the illegal immigrant.

To induce cooperation among employers, we could create an amnesty program.
Employers can report their illegal workers to DHS and avoid paying fines.
Maybe DHS/Unemployment Office will even give extra help to minimize disruption
to your business (i.e., no deportation until the day replacements are
available).

[edit: to those downmodding, just curious. Is there an obvious flaw in my plan
that I'm missing?]

~~~
JustinSeriously
I didn't downmod you, but a couple potential issues are:

\- The job market isn't always a zero-sum game, so immigrants aren't always
"stealing" jobs from citizens.

\- Illegal immigrants are often in low-paying jobs involving manual labor,
jobs that many citizens wouldn't consider even if they were available.
(Anecdotally, I know one landscaping company that offers all their jobs to
legal immigrants/citizens first, and if no one takes them they go to H-1B
visas, and if those run out they start looking at illegal immigrants.)

~~~
yummyfajitas
In the short term, it is zero sum. In the long run, I agree with you.
Therefore, such a scheme would be best used only for people who have been
unemployed for a reasonably long period of time (say, 6 weeks).

As for citizens being unwilling to accept available jobs, why should the
taxpayer be forced to pay unemployment benefits to people who are unwilling to
work?

