Older people who lose their jobs take longer to find work. It’s starting to appear that for many, they may never find a job again.
A New York Times article today reports than in August, according to the Labor Department, the average time unemployed for those 55 and older was slightly more than 39 weeks, the longest of any age group. That is much worse than in August 1983, also after a deep recession, when someone unemployed in that age group spent an average of 27.5 weeks finding work.
At this year’s pace of an average of 82,000 new jobs a month, it will take at least eight more years to create the 8 million positions lost during the recession. And that does not even allow for population growth. That means the average 55 year old may be near 60 by the time they find a job. Read more here.
