Jobless baby boomers feel out of touch with today's market

St. Louis Post-Dispatch ^ | 07/04/2003 | Adam Geller

[demlosers]

NEW YORK (AP)- The last time Ginny Westermayer was looking for a job, the job seemed to find her.

She was 26 then, and a friend tipped her to another position and told her whom to call. It was 21 years ago, and she hadn't looked for a job since.

[Stefan Stackhouse]

My grandma used to say " the world doesn't owe you a living." She survived the depression as a single mom with three kids, so she would know. These "boomers" aren't dealing with anything folks haven't had to deal with before.

Of course, back then they didn't have affirmative action, or minimum wage, or payroll taxes, or OSHA, or etc. . . If someone needed work done, they just hired someone, and if someone needed work, they just went out and got themselves hired.

[Stefan Stackhouse]

What do you think about such theory that joblessness and economical downturns are cause by epidemics of laziness and the greed of workers? This could explain the Great Depression and would demonstrate that there is nothing wrong with free market/free trade - it is lazy people who are at fault.

I think that professor Milton Freidman has conclusively demonstrated that the Great Depression was entirely caused by lazy and inept politicians -- not workers.

[Richard Kimball]

Yeah, it's so much tougher now than it was during the depression, I could just cry.

[Stefan Stackhouse]

The funeral industry is expected to enjoy a $700 million surge in profits, a result of the inevitable onslaught of lavish, Big Chill-themed memorial services.

DING! DING! DING! DING! DING!

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS, UNEMPLOYED BOOMERS!!

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

Anything for the elderly Baby Boomer will be a good investment or career path also. Many "Stop at 2" boomers did not even have 1 child, so they will require all kinds of services that adult children would have provided.

[A. Pole]

Anything for the elderly Baby Boomer will be a good investment or career path also. Many "Stop at 2" boomers did not even have 1 child, so they will require all kinds of services that adult children would have provided.

But will they be able to afford those services if the economy declines together with their portfolios?

[ItsOurTimeNow]

Try putting resume in PDF, looks very good and differentiates you.

When I was unemployed back in January of this year, I found a lot of success by snail-mailing my resume, or by hand-delivering it to the department manager. Rationale being, if someone posts a job on Friday, they're going to have 100 resumes waiting for them in their e-mail on Monday morning, and the fax machine is going to be loaded.

To add to this, I also designed my resume to look different (read: non-typical format or style), I printed it on paper that was slightly bigger than 8.5" x 11" (so it sticks out from the others when in a pile), and I even laminated a few copies. Point being, anything you can do to make your resume stand out from 100 others is going to help.

Most of what I've seen in the unemployment market is laziness on behalf of the unemployed. People who think they can post their resume on monster.com, then just sit back and wait for the opportunities to come to them. 5 years ago, yeah, you could have done that, but today it's a different story.

Many of the unemployed people I now work with are floored when they learn they actually have to HIT THE PAVEMENT and LOOK for work. Don't even get me started on how they react when I tell them to FOLLOW-UP with a perspective employer. "What do I say!? How should I say it!?" It's sad, really. Many have never had to work that hard in finding a job, and are hard-pressed to change their job-hunting habits.

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

Your right, many will end their days as a tax burden, having eaten away their equity and savings in order to survive being unemployed or under-employed the last 10-20 years of their working life.

[Dec31,1999]

You'll have my support. Ping me as necessary. We'll get the word out, for sure!

[Dec31,1999]

It's great that you've figured out how to be outstanding, but if more folks did that, as you suggest, you would be less so. And so would everyone else.

[roughrider]

I don't like to include myself as a "Boomer," as I did not share most of their worldview, but not all of them had an easy time in the economy. The biggest part of that bulge entered the job market in the early 70s when two big recessions hit, in 1971 and 1974. There was a "glut" of college degrees out there that did not prepare any of them for the realities of the radically changed market, including the massive influx of women into the market at the same time the economy contracted for a decade. There were a lot of "Boomers" out there taking any jobs that would pay. Some learned to lower their expectations, but many did not. The idea that life entailed hardships was a real learning experience for the ones lucky enough to learn that lesson.

[dalereed]

"Your right, many will end their days as a tax burden, having eaten away their equity and savings in order to survive being unemployed or under-employed the last 10-20 years of their working life"

I fit that in a way, I was making $60k in 1986 when the reagan "Tax Simplification Act" went into effect as a commercial building contractor. By 1988 I was feeding the corporation with my savings and by 92 I had plowed back over $200k. That tax act turned the commercial construction business into such garbage that to compete I would have had to pay $12/hr. cash and at the time the wages that I had to pay was $26 and $7.80 in fringes so I closed the corporation and became one of the self inflicted unemployed.

I didn't do anything for 4 years even though I attempted to get a job as an estimator, superintendant, or whatever with construction companies but to no avail. I was told flat out by several that at 55 there was no chance of my getting a job.

About 6 years ago my savings started to get a little thin so I started doing repair and maintainance work for owners, mostly rentals plus their personal residences.

I don't make a lot working for $20/hr but life is sure a lot easier than running a business working 12 hours a day 6 days a week which I did for almost 40 years.

I know that that wouldn't fit most of you but since my home is paid for and I bought my condo for cash and don't owe anyone a cent, it works for me.

Although with the current price of gasoline, utilities, and assorted other costs going up i'm thinking of raising my price to $25/hr.

[ARCADIA]

Yeah, it's so much tougher now than it was during the depression, I could just cry.

This thing is growing bigger. Just give a little more time and you may find out just how tough it is. The only thing keeping the images from the great depression at bay is massive debt.

[patton]

When I was in college, I spent ten bucks and had a bunch of business cards printed up. "Math tutering - call XXX-XXXX".

I started at $25/hr.

I kept raising my rates, and turning people away.

At $40 an hour, I graduated and got a real job.

Which pays me, fifteen years later, $43 an hour.

Hmmmm.

[Huck]

Of course, back then they didn't have affirmative action, or minimum wage, or payroll taxes, or OSHA, or etc. . . If someone needed work done, they just hired someone, and if someone needed work, they just went out and got themselves hired.

That's very true. Harder to start up a business and become an employer for the same reasons, too, but I guess I don't have to tell you.

[skinkinthegrass]

THANK YOU!....:)

[Richard Kimball]

"Our nation must steel itself for one vast, final orgy of Boomer self-obsession as we are hit with a bewildering onslaught of magazine pictorials, hardcover coffee-table books and multi-part, Motown-soundtracked television specials looking back on the glory days of the 1960s," Clausewitz said. "But once this great, final spasm of nostalgia passes, the ravages of age will take its toll on boomer self-indulgence, and the curtain will at long last fall on what is regarded by many as the most odious generation America has ever produced."

I quit smoking and started running again just so I could be around to see this.

[stboz]

For many others, the problem doesn't seem to have a real long-term solution...

It's called go blow up your competitor's countries and factories....also known as war. Worked nicely for about 25 or 30 years after the last big one. No competition and wide open export markets.

I wonder how long before the next one.

[Cacique]

More doom and gloom news on a dismal economy. Maybe these people would be better off going to school to learn Hindi or mandarin or Cantonese, cause that's where all the jobs are going.

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

You're doing very well compared to many baby boomers. Unlike you, so many are living beyond their means; unemployment or under-employment will be very hard on them.