Harvard Business Review Blog: Looking for a Job When You’re No Longer Young

Tags

Ageism, Employment, Job description, Job hunting, Older workers, Unemployed, Unemployment

by Anne Kreamer, blogs.hbr.org

We operate in a business landscape driven by an obsession with youth. I should know. I used to work in the red-hot center of one of the most youth-oriented companies on the planet, Nickelodeon. Nickelodeon is part of the MTV Networks where even the unwritten code of dress and grooming and behavior has one non-negotiable axiom: no matter what kind of work you do, it is essential to come across as youthful, or at least not too square. I am convinced that one senior-executive colleague never achieved his full potential because he simply looked too much like a conservative banker. Translation: he looked old.

But at least he had a job. During the last decade, the number of unemployed older workers has increased 300 percent. Workers over 45 are also unemployed longer than younger workers. And federal age discrimination actions filed annually increased 66% between 1999 and 2011. But workplace age discrimination is very, very hard to prove. If you’re looking for a new job and over 50, the answer is (probably) not to sue. It’s to play the hand you’ve been dealt as best you can.

60 Minutes: A Jobs Program for Workers “Trapped in Unemployment”

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60 Minutes, Economy, Job description, Older workers, Unemployed, Unemployment, Unemployment benefits, Work

Posted by: Mitchell Hirsch on Feb 21, 2012, www.unemployedworkers.org

The CBS News program ’60 Minutes’ this week featured a powerful segment on the crisis of long-term unemployment, focusing on the Connecticut-based jobs initiative for those who have exhausted unemployment benefits called ‘Platform to Employment.’

We were among the first to promote this promising initiative on our blog last summer prior to the initial ‘Platform to Employment’ (P2E) program launch.

Earlier this month, the WorkPlace, Inc. announced it had received a $200,000 grant from the AARP Foundation to help support P2E efforts to recruit and assist workers over 50 years of age, who make up a high proportion of those exhausting unemployment insurance benefits among the long-term unemployed.

Measures Aim to End Bias Against Long-Term Jobless

Tags

Economy, Employers, Employment, Older workers, Unemployed, Unemployment, Work

By SHELLY BANJO, www.wsj.com

More than a dozen states are considering legislation to make it illegal for companies to discriminate against the unemployed.

State lawmakers say they see the bias turning up in a nation with an 8.3% unemployment rate: Companies that explicitly advertise that they won’t hire someone who isn’t currently employed.

The proposals from Connecticut to California range in scope from banning advertisements that require current employment to allowing unsuccessful job candidates to sue businesses under the same discrimination laws that apply to bias on the basis of religion, race, gender or national origin.

The efforts come as the percent of the long-term unemployed—people looking for work for more than six months—has consistently topped 40% since December 2009, when it broke that threshold for the first time since 1948, the year such data began being collected.

Employers finding reliability of older workers refreshing

Tags

Ageism, Atria Senior Living, Employers, Employment, Job descrimination, Job hunting, Older workers, Unemployed

By Anita Bruzzese, Gannett, www.usatoday.com

Gisela Ashley had been a real-estate agent for about 18 years when she decided to take inheritance money from her father and go back to school.

She earned her master’s degree just one month shy of her 50th birthday in 2008, entering what she knew was a very difficult job market.

Her age coupled with the recession and limited experience in her new field of recreation programming for seniors should have added up to tough times for Ashley.

Age Differences in Job Loss, Job Search, and Reemployment

Tags

Career, Employment, Help, Job hunting, job opportunities, Job Search, Older workers, Unemployed, Unemployment

By Richard W. Johnson, Corina Mommaerts, Urban Institute

Abstract

Working longer is often hailed as the best way to increase retirement incomes, yet this strategy depends crucially on seniors’ ability to find work and hold on to their jobs. This study examines how the incidence and consequences of job displacement vary by age. Results show that older workers are less likely than younger workers to lose their jobs, but only because they generally have spent more time with their employers. When older workers lose their jobs, it takes them longer than their younger counterparts to become reemployed, and when they do find work they generally experience sharp wage declines.