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news
Current
economy hurts older workers
By Grant Parker
Special to the
Online Forty-Niner
In the current
economic downturn, older workers are having an increasingly
hard time in the job market. With the business cycle at a
low point, layoffs and extended unemployment are common place.
Economists say such a lapse in the economy and job market
is hard to predict, but it does create short demand among
consumers. Unfortunately, many older employees are being hit
the hardest.
Reasons for
layoffs
According to Lisa
Grobar, professor of economics
at Cal State Long Beach, "many experienced employees
are vulnerable to layoffs in a bad economy because of their
higher pay scale."
Companies can cut
payroll by laying off older, higher-salary employees, and
hiring younger workers at a lower salary and sometimes at
entry level. These young employees can also be taught specific.
If a company is
having a mass layoff, it does not have to justify why employees
are being let go. Often times higher salary jobs are cut if
companies can find lower qualified workers who can be taught
those specific skills.
Why it is hard
to find employment
Grobar says one
of the biggest problems that older, unemployed, workers face
in the search for employment is salary. Because older workers
have a great deal of experience in their field, they usually
have been at the top of their pay bracket in their last job.
Because older workers
have more financial responsibility, they also expect a higher
salary.
"Many older
workers are highly specialized in their field, and can't always
transfer their job skills to another setting," said Grobar.
These two factors
are what hinder experienced workers who are trying to find
employment.
Experienced,
but unemployed
Nicholas Sanabria
was laid off so his former company could cut salary costs.
The forty-five year old computer programmer, who was laid
off in early February, said his company told him that he was
over qualified and all they needed was PC support.
Sanabria says that
layoffs are common in his field because companies "go
through your position, and define your position with less
responsibilities for the new person."
According to Sanabria,
young workers will be hired as replacements, with little skill
in the field, in order to get rid of more expensive employees.
George Parker was
also laid off so his former company could cut salary. The
fifty-year-old engineer was let go in a series of company
layoffs last August.
He says that his
company "decided to cut payroll after a negative quarter
in order to get rid of expense… for share holder profitability."
According to Parker,
many companies are looking for short-term profitability, and
are laying off better, more experienced employees. These companies
either cut positions totally, or hire two young engineers
for the same price of one experienced engineer.
Finding a new
career has been tough
Both Sanabria and
Parker have had a hard time finding a career to fit their
needs. In the endless search for employment, both men haven't
been able to find a comparable position to that of their last
job. Prior experience and pay have been the major obstacles
in their searches.
Parker is having
a hard time being unemployed for the first time.
"It would
be much easier if I was a junior level engineer, that had
a much lower salary requirement, than being at a senior level,"
he said.
Sanabria sits in between levels that computer based companies
are hiring for. "For management positions, they are looking
for a minimum of ten to fifteen years experience… while
programming positions aren't looking for many skills, so salaries
are low," he said.
Job search techniques
Regardless of the
difficulties in finding employment, both Sanabria and Parker
continue their job searches. The following are a few of the
resources that both men (as well as many unemployed workers)
use in their daily searches:
Internet based
job searches
Recruiters
- Kelley Services
- Search
West
- Volt Technologies
- Independent
recruiters
Networking
Outplacement
firms
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