Posted on: Monday, July 5, 2004
Many older Americans continue working
By Brad Foss
Associated Press
After her husband's death, Doris Pease needed time to grieve and piece together her life as a widow.
She sold her house in Nevada, paid off her husband's medical bills and bought a mobile home in Pocatello, Idaho, to be closer to her brother. Pease, now 68, dug into her hobbies — reading, gardening and embroidering — but after about six years the money from the sale of her home, and her peace of mind, began to run out.
"I was getting so depressed sitting around the house that I needed to get back to work," she said.
For many older Americans, retirement is not a viable option; many are postponing retirement, while others are going back into the workforce, driven by personal or financial reasons.
The trend is evident in the number of older workers — the number of people 55 and above in the workforce rose to 22.7 million in May, up from 22 million in 2003 and 20.7 million the year before that, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The increase in older workers coincides with a shift in employers' attitudes — although there has long been an aversion in corporate America to hiring seniors, who were deemed expensive or difficult to train, that view is changing somewhat at a time when the government is forecasting a significant labor shortage by the end of the decade.
The need to work can be explained in part by money problems — AARP estimates that 1 in 10 Americans age 65 and over lives below the poverty level, explaining at least part of the phenomenon. Though most seniors aren't technically poor, many nonetheless struggle to make ends meet because of limited savings, expensive medications to buy or the loss of a spouse.
Others find employment critical to their mental well-being — contrary to how they expected to feel in their golden years.
"The money helps, don't get me wrong, but that wasn't the ultimate goal," said Ray Clark, 68, of Springfield, Mass., who took a part-time job at the Basketball Hall of Fame because he found retirement boring.
Clark, who spent much of his life as a machine operator for a company that makes corrugated boxes, said he would stick with his current gig — a minimum wage job — "until I can no longer do it."
Although older workers are well-known for such commitment, there is also the perception among would-be employers that they require considerable training, particularly in the area of technology, according to labor experts.
That's why organizations that advocate for the elderly sponsor job-training and placement services through a federally funded program called Senior Community Service Employment.
It was through this program, authorized by the Older Americans Act of 1965 and paid for by the Labor Department, that Pease landed a job at Idaho's Department of Health and Welfare, gaining experience in healthcare and general computing skills.
Today, she is employed by the American Red Cross, where she works scheduling blood donations and organizing events in the field.
Many U.S. employers are looking for reliable workers and, to help find it, they're turning more frequently to the growing pool of older workers, according to human resources executives and job-training specialists.
Home Depot Inc., CVS Corp., Anheuser-Busch Cos. and dozens of other major corporations have partnered with or contacted AARP, which recently started a program to identify job-seeking seniors and match them with the right employers.
This effort came about because executives identified a dearth of younger workers, particularly in the areas of retail, healthcare and transportation, according to Jim Seith, national director of the AARP Foundation, a sponsor of the Senior Community Service Employment program.
Billy Joe Brady, 60, of Norton, Va., never intended to leave the labor force. But he lost his job in 1998 when the local coal company moved out of town, and the thought of hunting for a job for the first time in 25 years frightened him.
Instead, Brady collected $1,300-a-month disability checks for a couple of years, while his wife, Linda, went to work for a nearby Holiday Inn.
"We were doing pretty good," he said, referring to their financial needs. But gradually Brady's self-esteem began to deteriorate.
"I kind of felt like I was sliding into nothingness and that didn't sit well with me," said Brady, who works at a nonprofit organization that assists people with disabilities to live independently.
"It feels good to get up every morning to say, 'Well, I have to go to work,' " Brady said. "I have a purpose every day. Not every day when I get up do I feel the best in the world, but I feel that if I get up and get started, that kind of goes away."
