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Older workers who lost jobs in recession spend longer time without employment

Ann Kingston, 59, of Belmont checks for employment opportunities at the Job Center. Kingston is among a growing number of older job-seekers who are having trouble finding work.

Jan Underwood Ann Kingston, 59, of Belmont checks for employment opportunities at the Job Center. Kingston is among a growing number of older job-seekers who are having trouble finding work.

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By Cornelius Frolik, Staff Writer Updated 8:57 AM Monday, April 18, 2011

Ann Kingston, 59, has not found a steady job since moving back to the Dayton area in November, and she believes her age has played a role in her unsuccessful job hunt.

Kingston said employers seem to view her and other older workers as more expensive, less capable of learning new technologies and unmotivated to work hard. Her experience is not uncommon.

Although older workers have a lower unemployment rate than other segments of the population, they remain unemployed longer and their jobless rate rose by a larger percentage during the recession than their younger counterparts, according to a report released this month by the AARP Public Policy Institute.

In Ohio last year, the annual  average rate of unemployment for workers 55 and older was 6.4 percent, up from 3.54 percent in 2007, according to U.S. Census data. On average, 75,000 older workers were unemployed at any given time, an increase of 38,000 from 2007.

A Dayton Daily News special  investigation found at the end of last year, many older unemployed workers had depleted their retirement savings and unemployment benefits, and are seeking Social Security benefits before their full retirement age.

Even when older job applicants have a high skill set and plenty of work experience, employers are often reluctant to hire them because they typically held a job that paid higher wages, said Richard Stock, director of the University of Dayton’s Business Research Group.

Employers fear that paying those workers a lower wage may “demotivate” them and lead them  to seek other job opportunities sooner than others, Stock said. “When you’re hiring someone, you want them to be excited about the job offer, and it’s clear ... that an older worker who had a higher salary may not be as excited about that job offer, especially when you are offering them less than they’ve had in the past.”

Higher health care costs associated with an older work force is also a factor in hiring decisions, he said. Older workers are also more likely to have been in a union, and some employers are biased against former union employees, Stock said.

“I think it is less about the fear that they’ll try to unionize the work force, and more about the perceptions employers have about the nature of the worker that the person will be,” he said.

Nationally, about 1.97 million American workers 55 and older were unemployed in March, an increase of 129 percent from December 2007 when 860,000 were out of work, according to the AARP report. The national unemployment rate for older workers was 6.5 percent last month, more than double the 3.2 percent rate in December 2007.

Data show that workers ages 16 to 24 have the highest unemployment rate, but the number of unemployed people in this age group only grew by 42 percent to 3.7 million in March from 2.6 million in December 2007.

One of the most worri- some statistics is that almost 55 percent of unemployed workers 55 and older last month had been out of work for 27 weeks or more, compared to 42.8 percent of younger workers, said Sara Rix, AARP senior strategic policy adviser who authored the report. In March, older workers on average remained unemployed for 51.5 weeks, compared to 37.8 weeks for younger workers.

Rix said long-term unemployment causes many older workers to deplete their unemployment benefits and it forces them to tap into their retirement accounts prematurely, wiping out money they will need later.

“They are going to be much more heavily dependent on Social Security than they might have been; and they are likely, if they can, to be working later in life,” Rix said. “But that’s a big if, because many of these workers won’t find jobs and they will withdraw from the labor force.”

Lucious Plant, the Montgomery County Job Center’s work force development administrator, said older workers may have higher wage expectations than other job-seekers, which would explain why it takes many of them longer to find new jobs.

The rocky state of the economy, including declining home values and stagnant stock investments, also led many older people to remain in the work force longer and seek full-time instead of part-time positions.

Ohio’s 55-and-older work force increased to 1.18 million in 2010 from 1.05 million in 2007, according to the Census.

Despite a lengthy resume that includes more than 11 years at an insurance company, Kingston said she has received few interviews and she suspects her age is hurting her prospects.

After landing a job at a car dealership, Kingston said she was fired three weeks later because they said she had trouble learning the computer and phone systems. While she admits a younger worker may have mastered the job more quickly, she would have bested them in loyalty and reliability.

“They said, ‘It’s not working out because you are not picking this up fast enough,’ ” she said. “They expected me to get it like instantly.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-0749 or cfrolik@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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