Fifty-Five or Over? We Want You — To Work

Are you looking to keep the gold flowing during your Golden Years? Does the idea of a retirement spent sitting in a rocking chair or playing golf seem like Purgatory? Do you need to keep working for financial reasons?

If you answered, “Yes,” to any of the above, this week is for you.

National Employ Older Workers Week and You

National Employ Older Workers Week, which began today, is an initiative begun during the Eisenhower administration to spotlight the workforce contributions that older workers make every day. For many reasons, more of us will be making such contributions for a longer time than perhaps ever before in history.

According to the National Employ Older Workers Week Web site, “By 2014, 41.2 percent of Americans age 55 or older will be participating in the labor force, making up over 21 percent of the workforce, and 18 million more Americans age 55 or older will be in the labor force than there were in 1998.”

Workforce to Shrink, Provide Openings for Elders

And even if we don’t need the jobs, the workforce will need us. As the Baby Boom generation begins to retire during the next decade, “Labor force growth is expected to fall from 1.1 percent per year in the 1990s to 0.36 percent per year in the period 2010 to 2020,” according to the 2003 Urban Institute paper, “Letting Older Workers Work,” which examines possible reforms in benefits programs and employment law to help encourage seniors to remain in the work force.

Help for Older Workers with Limited Incomes

If you’re an older worker on a limited income and your skills aren’t quite up to date, don’t despair: the federal government’s Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP) was designed with workers like you in mind. SCSEP places older workers in subsidized, part-time positions with non-profit and public facilities ranging from day-care centers to hospitals.

The SCSEP program provides participants with a wide range of services including job placement, training, and access to local One-Stop Career Centers. The One-Stop Centers are also available to workers, young and old alike, whose income is too high to qualify for SCSEP’s other services.

Job-seeking and career change help is also available to older workers through the AARP Foundation’s WorkSearch system and various other federal programs.

Older Workers – the Myths and the Reality

Even though age discrimination is illegal, there are still many myths about older workers you may run up against as you strive to continue working. The good news is that they are just that — myths — and the truth is that employers have a lot to gain by hiring and retaining a greying work force. For one, our productivity does not decrease as we age — it actually increases because older workers are more accurate, dependable, and capable of making better on-the-spot judgments.

For more myths about older workers and the answers to them, see this document released in 2000 by the AARP, posted on Seniors4hire.org. If you’re an employer, you may find yourself surprised at the many benefits of hiring an older employee – unless, of course, you’re in that age bracket yourself.

Older Workers Can Help Build the Next Generation of Small Businesses

There are other ways to contribute to the business world that don’t involve a paycheck. SCORE, an organization that bills itself as “Counselors to America’s Small Business,” is a non-profit organization that educates entrepreneurs and encourages “the formation, growth and success of small business nationwide.”

Where do you come in? If you are an experienced professional, SCORE needs you to help mentor new entrepreneurs and put them on the road to success. See the SCORE Web site for details.

Other Resources

Finally, QuintCareers.com offers a list of tips for older workers, including several links to message boards, Web sites that will help you update your resume, and more.