Job market wasted on the young

In an aging society, mature workers still get passed over

(istockphoto.com)

After shuttering his small Groton metal fabrication business in 2005, Gary Williams began looking for work. But he hunted for two years for a managerial post without success, and he thinks he knows why. He's 61.

"One of the problems when you reach this point in your career is your age," says Williams, who acknowledges that when he ran his business, he was sometimes reluctant to hire older workers for some kinds of physical labor. "I just know from my own experience that they're going to go for the younger person."

Now in nursing school, Williams is banking on a career switch to land the steady work he needs financially. But his experience - unresponsive employers and jobs lost to younger, less qualified candidates - echoes that of many mature workers who seek employment.

Here we are in an aging society, with more people living longer and hoping to stay in the labor market. More than 70 percent of baby boomers, for instance, want to keep on working past traditional retirement age, reports the AARP. Yet we still think of vibrant, experienced people in their 60s on up as too old to occupy the next cubicle. Can we as a nation afford to ignore such talent?

"There are still many employers who are not sold that mature workers are a value in the workforce," says Deborah Russell, director of workforce issues for AARP, the powerful advocacy group for people over 50. "The younger the manager, the worse the bias is."

Age discrimination is hard to prove or measure, yet it's unquestionably widespread, and apparently is growing. Claims filed with the federal government rose to more than 19,000 last year, nearly a 20 percent increase from the previous year. And many workplace experts say that figure doesn't fully re flect the prevalence of this form of bias. Two-thirds of workers age 45 to 74 have witnessed or experienced age discrimination, according to one AARP study.

A Supreme Court ruling in late June strengthens the hand of older workers by mandating that employers, not employees, prove that a layoff or other action that disparately affects older workers is based on a "reasonable factor" - not on age. But that victory aside, the workplace and job market often remain chilly, even hostile, to mature workers.

"There are tremendous stereotypes out there that contribute to the continuation of age discrimination," says Elizabeth Grossman, the New England-New York region's lead attorney for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC enforces the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which prohibits employers from firing, or refusing to hire or promote people age 40 and older.

Companies overwhelmingly see late-career workers as reliable and hard working, yet large numbers also wrongly assume that most older workers are resistant to change and reluctant to try new technologies, according to a recent study by the Boston College Center for Aging and Work/Workplace Flexibility.

In particular, discrimination is rife during job searches, says Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes, the center's director. Employers tend to be biased against "people they don't know," she says. "It takes longer to find a job, and older people are less likely to get interviews."

One recent EEOC lawsuit involves a 58-year-old Meredith, N.H., man who applied in late 2006 for a job as a comptroller at a local office of Freudenberg-NOK, a Michigan-based manufacturer. When Timothy Poh later saw the job readvertised, he called the company, and was told that Freudenberg hoped to hire someone "not quite so old with as much experience." The company ultimately hired someone younger, yet less qualified, according to the suit filed in December. Poh did not return a call to his home.

After leaving a high-flying career as a consultant due to ill health a few years ago, Bob Skladany searched for a job for more than a year without success. And when he did land a few interviews, he recalls being asked questions such as, "We have a fairly young workforce here, are you comfortable with this?" or "How much longer do you plan to be working?"

"I'd love to believe it was age bias, but can I prove it? No," says Skladany, now vice president of research at RetirementJobs.com Inc., a Waltham-based online career site for people over 50.

Why do older people now want to work longer? More people can expect to live longer, and yet they often lack a secure savings or pension plan. "Need income to live on" is the most frequently cited reason for working among 55- to 65-year-olds, according to a study by the MetLife Mature Market Institute. Yet staying active and "giving back" are also crucial reasons for many older workers, research shows.

Gary Williams runs a part-time castings fabrication business from a plant in his hometown of Webster. But his main goal is to become a helicopter nurse. Employers should give older, experienced people a try, he says. "Just give us a chance, instead of looking at that holy age thing and making a decision based on that."

Maggie Jackson, author of 'What's Happening to Home: Balancing Work, Life and Refuge in the Information Age,' can be reached at maggie.jackson@att.net.