Labor fights for older workers
It’s happening again. One of the perverse features of the Great Recession ten years ago was the removal of many older workers from the workforce. A significant number of experienced employees were forced into sudden unemployment or early retirement. Many never fully recovered financially or emotionally, and their careers were scarred and lacking a dignified closure. The current Covid-induced recession is once again presenting similar labor difficulties for mature workers. Since March, the labor market has said goodbye to many elderly men and women, who have high and low qualification levels. In other words, this layoff of the elderly is widespread.
Unfortunately, this turns out to be not simply a temporary furlough for these workers, but a long-term separation marked by an acceleration of egregious trends. Once again, as during the last recession, new trend job changes are undermining job security for older workers. Past examples included labor-saving technologies and increased workloads for younger, less expensive staff, which combined to lessen management’s need to restore previous staffing levels. Once again, mature employees find their bargaining power diminished in the face of firing and rehiring. Weak or non-existent unions, the rise of the informal economy and the continued lenient enforcement of anti-age discrimination laws, not to mention the damaging economic disruption of Covid, mean that older workers feel increasingly insecure and inadequate. .
The New School Retirement Equity Lab studies the factors that affect the quality of retirement, which requires an examination of when you choose or are forced to retire from work. His assessment of the plight of older workers is sobering. Even for those older workers who have not yet been laid off, there is considerable uncertainty about their future. This cohort is increasingly aware that they are less employable than younger workers. Those 55 and older often realize that if they were to quit their current jobs, the chances of transitioning to a comparable or better one are dubious. For many, it becomes prudent to stay with a less than satisfying job and then risk becoming unemployed.
Relatively solid earnings have traditionally been an expectation for long-term commitment to a profession and/or employer. Seems fair, right? However, these days, when an older worker is rehired after a job loss, hourly wages are often lower than with the previous job. Workers ages 50 to 61 receive 20% less pay with their new job, while workers age 62 and older see a 27% decrease. In addition, once a worker reaches their fifties, unemployment spells after a layoff are longer than for workers under age 50.
The increased uncertainty and low confidence faced by older workers add to the weakness of their bargaining power. Employers know in most cases that they have an advantage over older workers, except in those situations where the worker possesses a unique or hard-to-find skill. This is unfortunate. A lifetime of work deserves value and respect. Retirement in the modern era should be a reward for the effort, dedication and achievements of decades of work, not an isolation or banishment imposed due to the vicissitudes of the employment economy.
As the Retirement Equity Lab points out, lawmakers may need to step in with schemes designed to lessen the hardship for older workers laid off early. For example, employers could offer emergency or rainy day savings plans through payroll deductions, which will be available when needed to increase unemployment benefits, or the federal government could step in with an account savings option. guaranteed retirement to supplement what retirees receive from Social Security. Of course, stricter enforcement of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 would go a long way.
Racing is a vocation and a call to develop mastery and contribute to society. For others, work is simply a means to earn a paycheck. Either way, getting older should not be seen as a liability or a deficiency to be taken advantage of.