Over-50 set says age is a barrier to finding a job in today’s market

Joyce Oliver, Jim Fennell and Sudie Brown know the pleasures of comfortable lives in the Catawba Valley.

They also know the pain of unemployment.

Like thousands of other area residents, the three have filled out countless job applications, mailed hundreds of resumes and logged seemingly endless hours on the road in recent years in search of employment.

And like many other people over 50, they suspect their age has been a primary barrier between them and the jobs they’ve sought.

It’s a complaint heard daily by Sheila Earp and Roberta Hungerford, local representatives of Experience Works, a national nonprofit organization that helps low-income people 55 and older find job-training opportunities and employment.

“I’ve seen more age discrimination in the last two years than I have since the 1960s,” Hungerford said.

“Because of high unemployment, employers have been able to pick and choose.”

The Hickory region’s unemployment rate was 6.8 percent in August, similar to what it has been for the last two years. That’s down from a high of 9.8 percent in 2002, but well above the 2.5 percent norm in 2000.

“When you have as many as 200 people applying for one job, employers can come up with a dream applicant,” said Earp, who coordinates Experience Works operations in a six-county region.

All too often, that dream applicant is much younger than 50, she said.

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 protects people 40 and older from employment discrimination based on age. The ADEA’s protections apply to employers with 20 or more workers, and covers employees and job applicants.

But proving age discrimination can be nearly impossible for a job applicant, Hungerford said.

“We’ve had employers who’ve flat-out said they’re not going to hire somebody because of their age, but most are a lot smoother than that,” she said.

“You give them your date of birth or the year you graduated from school and you never get a call.”

Terry L. Walker of the JobLink Career Center at Catawba Valley Community College says age bias plays a role in older people’s difficulty finding employment, but that locally it’s more an issue of sheer numbers of applicants.

“It depends on the company, but mainly it’s a matter of intense competition for jobs,” said the former human resources manager who now provides career planning, training and placement services at JobLink.

In August, nearly 21,000 residents of Alexander, Burke, Caldwell and Catawba counties sought employment through the N.C. Employment Security Commission.

Of those, more than 7,700 – roughly 37 percent – were 45 or older.

Earp said a significant portion of older people seeking jobs were longtime employees of the area’s beleaguered furniture and textile industries.

According to the Employment Security Commission, more than 23,500 manufacturing jobs – most of them in furniture and textiles – have been lost in Alexander, Burke, Caldwell and Catawba counties since 2000.

Many of those laid-off employees had worked in the industries for decades and must now change careers, retrain or relocate to find jobs, Earp said.

What’s the solution?

Earp, Hungerford and Walker agree that technical education – especially computer-related training – is a key to helping older people find jobs in an evolving and competitive marketplace.

They also say employers and older job seekers alike often need to change their attitudes.

Earp said employers should realize that older workers offer valuable skills and often have better work ethics – especially dependability and company loyalty – than their younger counterparts.

Employers also need to become more open to alternative work arrangements – including job sharing – and benefit packages that fit the company’s needs as well as those of the older worker, Walker said.

Some older people seeking employment also need to become more open-minded, especially to continuing education and to taking jobs they’ve not held in the past, Walker said.

She agrees with Earp and Hungerford that changing demographics mean a shift in hiring practices is inevitable.

The U.S. Department of Labor says the aging baby boom generation will make up a larger proportion of the work force in the next two decades.

The 55-and-older age group, which represented 13 percent of the labor force in 2000, is projected to increase to 20 percent by 2020, the department says.

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