Over 50 and out of work but not SOL

Over 50 and out of work but not SOL
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
November 16, 2013

Most of the readers of Wounded Times are my age,,,,old. If you're like me you wonder how your hair manages to change color while you are sleeping. Where the hell did all these gray hairs come from anyway? At our age, we remember the days when we had great jobs right out of high school. I know I did. My boss was on salary and since I was hourly, I ended up making more than he did because I was always working. Times changed.

We got married, bought houses and raised our kids. (Good Lord when did mine get so old?) We worked through most of those years and just when we got to the part of our lives when it was supposed to be fun, we ended up out of work.

In 1998 I got certified in Computer Literacy. Yes there is such a thing. Back then it was a new language. That certification got me a huge raise and my boss even paid me back for my classes. Yippie! Loved it anyway. Still after 25 years of accounting, the certification, I had a choice to make. Take management jobs (that I hated) and still doing my volunteer work while digging my own grave very slowly taking care of my Mom and my house and family, or we could move to Florida and I could work part time. No brainer, or so I thought but it turned out to be me being brain dead. What was I thinking?

More temp jobs working for people with a lot less experience than I had, followed by a job that lasted two years I loved until the economy killed it and more temp jobs topped off with two years of Digital Medial Certifications from Valencia College and a boatload of student loans left me wondering what the hell did I do wrong. What did I do wrong in a past life that has left me with a non-profit and no money? What was I thinking?

The problem is I love it. I love what I do and I get to meet so many different people at the events I cover. In college I had to compete with students my daughter's age but I kept up and managed to pull off good grades. I filmed over a 100 events and put together a lot more on PTSD plus wrote two books. Not too shabby when you factor in that this site has over 20,000 posts. Yep a lot of work.

The issue is that people our age just don't get much of a break anywhere from anyone. I heard all the bull about technology and our generation isn't able to learn but pretty much we proved all of them wrong when we managed to learn what they know when we didn't grow up with tablets, or cell phones that would have made Gene Roddenberry flabbergasted (For the younger readers out there, he is responsible for Star Trek) on top of the fact we had to go to the library to do research and actually had to get up off our ass to change the TV channel. Amazing but no matter how fast we adapt, no matter how much we have learned or how hard we can work, they look at us as if the only job we're qualified for is "Welcome to Walmart."

So if there is a company out there in need of a digital media cameraman/editor/writer, give me a call. For the rest of you feeling as if you are SOL too, here's some hope for you.

Over 50 and out of work: Program seeks to help long-term unemployed
By Nona Willis-Aronowitz, NBC News contributor
Sat Nov 16, 2013

When Bret Lane was laid off from his telecommunications sales job after 16 years, he wasn’t worried. He’d never been unemployed for more than a few days since he started working as a teenager. But months passed, and he couldn’t find a job. One day, he heard the Purina plant in his Turlock, Calif., neighborhood was hiring janitors for $14 an hour. When he arrived early at 4 a.m., he counted more than 400 people lined up to interview.

“That’s when I realized things had gotten serious,” said Lane, 53, who called being out of work “pure hell.”

Lane’s experience is hardly unique. As of September 2013, 4 million people had been unemployed for six months or more. The economy has been slow to regain the 8.7 million jobs lost during the Great Recession, making prospects grim for many of the long-term unemployed.

Older workers like Lane make up a larger percentage of the persistently jobless than ever before. Nearly 40 percent of unemployed workers are over the age of 45 — a 30 percent rise from the 1980s. And for this group, the job hunt can be particularly long and frustrating. Unemployed people aged 45-54 were jobless for 45 weeks on average, and those 55 to 64 were jobless for 57 weeks, according to an October 2013 Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll.

Younger workers didn’t have such a hard time, perhaps because many employers value productivity over loyalty or longevity, said Linda Barrington, an economist at Cornell University’s Institute for Compensation Studies. “Companies will pay a premium for energetic young people,” she said.
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