50 Is the New 65: Older Americans Are Getting Booted from Their Jobs -- and Denied New Opportunities

[haele]

170. Plumber and auto mechanic are good jobs until they're the only jobs left.

I don't remember who said it, but I heard on NPR that the way the job market is going with more privatization of services and the shrinking of available skilled labor work, only reliable economies left for the average workforce that doesn't already have a lot of money to begin with over the next ten years is to be handling each other's purchases - no matter what skills or training one has already.

With increased competition of workers trying to gain non-outsourcable, stable, or necessary-for-the-public-good jobs that are now being privatized, the normally high skilled, experienced, or specialty labor fields that do facilitation, repair, installation, or fabrication will see their "good" wages will drop to the level of entry-level, low or non-skilled just above minimum wage jobs such as security guard, cashier or stocker.

It's getting worse in non-tangible jobs where you'd want a dedicated, trained person doing the job and production cannot be easily measured in dollar signs on monthly spreadsheets - caretakers and lower-level professionals have seen their median wages fall a good 40% (to 70% in some areas) over the past 40 years as their work gets weighed against quarterly profit margins.

I'm the only person with a regular in my immediate family; spouse is disabled and on SSDI, 20-year-old step-daughter is still working through PTSD and can't stick to school or keep a job, grandchild is only 2. If something happened to my job over the next five years before my pension kicks in, everyone who depends on my paycheck would be royally f**'d. At 55 and not already being in one of the few very senior manager, program manger, or engineer positions available, it will be years before anyone would consider hiring me full time with the current number of job availabilities to applicants at anywhere within half my current salary (which isn't great for my experience and skills anyway). I'm good at what I do, and am reliable and dependable when it comes to skills and getting the job done right, but I'm not "spectacular" and I haven't been particularly ambitious when it comes to wanting to give up my personal life to be in a position of power. If I were able to make a go at being an independent contractor, I'd still be lucky to get two or three months worth of work a year at $15 - $20 an hour with no benefits through my networks - there are that many people looking for work, and it's a big ol' employer's discount store out there.

If I lost my job next week, without unemployment insurance, we'd be bankrupt within the next six months and/or verging on homeless within a year after that. But if I lost it after 5 years from now, we'd still be f**'d, but at least not royally.
I consider myself better off than many of my contemporaries, who have many of the same issues and prospects ahead of them.

Haele