Why the Middle-Aged Are Missing Out on New Jobs

[CountAllVotes]

Like many other things in the stutter-step economic recovery, the job market is finally recovering, but progress is uneven and some people are being left out. The latest jobs report, for example, shows that the economy created 216,000 jobs in March, for a total of about 1.9 million new jobs since employment levels bottomed out at the end of 2009. That's a healthy pace of job growth that will help bring down the uncomfortably high unemployment rate, and, with luck, cement the recovery.

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But digging into the numbers reveals some of the unusual ways that work and retirement may be permanently changing for millions of Americans. Most of the new jobs created since the end of 2009, for one thing, are going to workers under the age of 34, or over the age of 55. Employment levels for middle-aged workers, meanwhile, are stagnant or still falling. Here's a breakdown:

Age group Job gains last 15 months Unemployment rate
All adults 16 and over 1.9 million 8.8%
16 - 24 490,000 17.6%
25 - 34 709,000 9.1%
35 - 44 -143,000 7.2%
45 - 54 -454,000 7.1%
55 and over 1.3 million 3.1%

(Note: The broken-down job numbers don't completely add up to the total due to seasonal adjustments and other factors.)

Job gains for workers under 35--about 1.2 million in total--seem to be healthy and normal for this point in a recovery. That's obviously good news, since recent college grads will have an easier time finding jobs, adult kids will finally wave goodbye to their parents and move out on their own, and young Americans will form more new households, which will help boost spending and perhaps even revive the moribund housing market down the road. But other trends are surprising and even troublesome. Here are four important things that seem to be changing:

More working seniors. Workers over 55 are snagging the most new jobs, which says a lot about the state of retirement planning in America. Numerous surveys show that perhaps half of all Americans heading toward their retirement years lack enough savings to maintain their current standard of living as they age. The sharp drop in home values has hammered away at the household wealth of many retirement-age people. Many others lost a bundle when the stock market fell in 2008 and 2009--and bailed out just in time to miss the bull market that followed. Add to that fears of cutbacks in Social Security and Medicare, due to the skyrocketing national debt. The golden years, for many, aren't shimmery at all.

read more here: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Why-the-MiddleAged-Are-usnews-1156971570.html?x=0#mwpphu-container

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So much for the great news in that job report. Seems that people 35-54 have realized a LOSS of 597,000 jobs in the past 15 months. :mad: :(

[eilen]

1. It didn't really say why. Except for a little blurb that

middle aged might cost a little more however, older people do too. I think they need to look into it more.

[Recursion]

3. They have kids at home and can't easily move

I would guess that's a big part of it.

[Lochloosa]

4. They/we also can't sell our homes. Most are underwater.

[Recursion]

5. Less than 20% of mortgages are underwater

Not "most".

[Dappleganger]

7. More than half are underwater in my area.

In my neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods, probably all of them.

[Recursion]

8. That sucks

But I was talking about nationally, like the unemployment numbers.

The only underwater houses I know of are people who got second mortgages, but then again I'm in the only city whose housing prices are up from 2006.

[Donnachaidh]

10. link to back that up?

we'll wait...

[Recursion]

11. My bad, it's at 23% now

Still not nearly "most"

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2011/mar/08/081112/analyst-23-percent-of-us-mortgages-underwater/news-breaking/

[aSpeckofDust]

2. They also don't count the 'coming of age' workers into the numbers.

Ie, highschool/college grads that don't have unemployment but still can't find work. I -believe- it was mentioned in an article that each month gets a new workforce of around 200kish, but I may be wrong about that number.

[Recursion]

6. They do

The unemployment rate and who qualifies for unemployment benefits are two different things. To determine the unemployment rate they ask a whole bunch of people "have you worked in the past month?"

[Wounded Bear]

9. "says a lot about retirement planning in America"

Yeah, right. Nobody planned on a bunch of swindlers turning the stock market into a casino, I guess.

That statement alone tells what the mindset of the author is.