Older Workers Fight Age Bias Job Seekers Over 50 Years Old Face Uphill Battle In Labor Market That Favors Youth
Don’t tell Betty Deal age discrimination is illegal.
She’s well aware of the laws protecting older employees in the work place, but she also knows what it’s like to be middle-age and suddenly thrust into a fiercely competitive labor market after a corporate downsizing.
“When you go in and talk to them (job interviewers), they ask you, ‘How long do you think you’ll be with us?’ or ‘Are you going to retire?’
“Then they’ll say something like, ‘We were looking for someone with a little less experience.’What they really meant to say is they want someone younger,” said Deal, 56, of San Jose, Calif., who lost her $60,000-a-year management job with a Silicon Valley electronics firm four years ago.
She has yet to find permanent full-time work.
Stable jobs are becoming even scarcer nationwide as mega-mergers in the banking and entertainment industries and corporate restructurings among behemoths like AT&T, Colgate-Palmolive and Merck yield thousands of layoffs.
All ages are at risk. However, unemployment for the 50-plus crowd, many of whom are in the twilight years of their careers and at peak earnings, poses special problems in a decade of corporate cost-trimming and downsizing.
Some senior workers will be offered early retirement, but even those receiving benefits may still need to keep working to make ends meet. Many career counselors have reported a recent rise in the number of older clients.
Unfortunately, “companies are more likely to hire part-timers … temporaries … or younger people with less experience,” said William S. Payson, who runs the Senior Staff Job Information Exchange in San Jose, which helps match older job seekers with available jobs. “The companies like the flexibility; it enables them to expand and contract their labor force without creating headlines.”
Jim Robinson Jr., 52, of Portland, has seen that strategy firsthand. Before being laid off in the summer of 1992, Robinson earned around $95,000 a year as a systems engineering manager for International Business Machines.
While his resume displays a lifetime of achievements - including 25 years of steady movement up IBM’s corporate ladder - he has yet to find a comparable position.
“I think it has to do with my salary. Most employers, I’ve discovered, do not wish to pay more than $60,000 to $70,000 for an employee. Period,” said Robinson. “There’s the six-digit money in the executive suite, but you have to have entry to the executive suite before your 45th birthday.”
Job counseling experts say it often takes a bit longer for the 50-plus job seeker to find work. (Fifty percent of all workers on average find new jobs within three months, 80 percent within six months, they say.)
Payson says most older job seekers should also resign themselves to the fact that the salaries from their most recent position often won’t be matched, at least initially, and especially if they’re changing careers. At the same time, he says, they shouldn’t rule out part-time work since that eventually could lead to a higher-paying full-time position.
“It can be a nice fit. Some companies look for older workers because they feel they’re more experienced and reliable,” Payson said.
In fact, most of the 1,000-or-so listings in his Senior Staff Job Information Exchange are for part-time work. Eighty-three percent of those jobs are filled within days, he said.
Deal, who was a customer service manager for an electronics firm, is now working part-time selling insurance and securities for an investment company. While she’s only earning commission, she’s hopeful the experience will parlay into a more lucrative full-time position down the line.
“It was devastating losing your job,” said Deal. “But I’ve learned not to lose my self-confidence, not to give up looking.”
“It all has to do with attitude,” agreed Lamar Jolly, senior adviser for Bernard Haldane Associates, a Portland job placement service, which has seen an increase in 50-plus job seekers.
“This segment of the population needs to go back to the well and look at themselves in terms of how they sold themselves in their youth. They can start by using their reserve of energy and maturity.”
Eliminating the problem will take time, Jolly said.
“Things will only start to change as the baby boomers get older. There are strength in numbers,” he said of the post World War II generation, the oldest of which turns 50 this year.
xxxx FIGHTING AGE DISCRIMINATION A few tips for the older job hunter: Age-proof your resume. Leave out date of birth or the year of graduation from college and list only work experiences from the last 15 to 20 years. Emphasize modern skills. Let your prospective employer know you can operate a personal computer or any other high-tech gadgetry. Brush up, learn new skills. If you’re lacking in technological know-how or career-specific skills, enroll in courses to bring you up to speed. Accentuate accomplishments. List any noteworthy achievements that distinguish yourself from others in your field, like how you saved a former employer money or greatly increased its work force productivity. Note life experiences. Any volunteer or community work that illustrates teamwork or abilities to assume leadership roles should be listed. Create a professional appearance. That means investing in a new outfit for interviews. -Associated Press