Sixty-Something And Back On The Factory Floor

An AccuRounds factory in Avon, Mass. (Courtesy of AccuRounds)

Here & Now Guests:

Richard Rogers, a machine operator at AccuRounds in Avon, Massachusetts
Michael Tamasi, AccuRounds president and CEO

The Labor Department recently reported that unemployment among older workers, 55 and up, is at its highest level since the department began collecting data in 1948.

It’s tough for older workers, who have lost their jobs in the recession, to find new work. They often have to develop new skills or get new training in jobs they’ve been doing for years to compete in today’s marketplace.

But Richard Rogers beat the odds. He was a machinist, and he went back to school as he was pushing 60 to get training to land a new job.

Rogers told Here & Now’s Robin Young that his biggest fear was that he would be able to put his education to use: “I got a good education, but would someone hire me at my age?”

Rogers was able to get a job at the company AccuRounds, which makes precision machine parts in Avon, Massachusetts.

Retirement Jobs.com: Ranking employers by percentage of workers over 50
Facebook or Comment: Should older workers get the “nudge”?

We welcome comments from all of our listeners. Post below. Please stay on topic and be civil. Comments may be moderated by us, but you are solely responsible for the content of your comments.

Michael McAteer

I am not in my sixties, but I quit my job in Ohio, making $40,000 a year with full benefits to go back to school to get my Masters degree.

I have recently graduated with my MAJ and I am working for a sign company in my town, making $23,000 a year and no benefits. But, it’s a job!

http://michaelmaczesty.blogspot.com
Cantorron

I’m a teacher. I confronted a former employer over teaching to the test and lost that job. Subsequently, I took a job with the roughest middle school in my city, and raised scores more than any teacher in the city, but was scapegoated by the principal when the school was reorganized, so I was fired from there. Now, there are 1750 laid-off teachers, all young and pretty, competing with me for jobs as far as two hours away. I am now applying for anything that will pay my health insurance.
BHA in Vermont

Bachmann says there is nothing like the EPA and it is a Job Killing Federal Agency?

Europe has FAR more (and MUCH better) regulation than the USA. Better environmental, better health, better social. Must be there are no jobs in Europe.
disillusioned

On all the money the government is giving to the community
colleges, my teacher got put on administrative leave for being off topic, and
then admin said I could take all 4 classes over again on a voucher and then
withdrew the offer to hide their error; the school also lost its accreditation
for its nursing program and the accreditation for NSA wasn’t granted to my
program as they were claiming. This government funded education was a JOKE. I
feel for Cantorron. Education in the USA today is a Mess and so is the overall
funding of it. There are no jobs, they are all overseas; our education system
faces the same CORRUPTION and dysfunction as the rest of the system and this is
what happens when we are sold out, it trickles down and seeps everywhere. We
have lost our integrity. Owens CC was supposed to give me the skills I needed
to get a job; it was a demoralizing waste of time.
disillusioned

I would like to clarify that I went back to school with
government funds, laid off from a government job. They are mindlessly throwing
funds at substandard and pointless programs to sustain systems that Don’t Work.
Antiquated. Unmonitored. We need Real Jobs
and Real Education and a Real Economy. It is a farce, a game they are playing
with us and they think we aren’t aware. I saw in my classes how most people
wouldn’t notice “the emperor was wearing no clothes” and this is what our
policy makers are relying on, but there are limits and eventually they will end
up burning their own behinds.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_DPKS3HUGQBPILPIU7IVZSHGXLI Robert_N

It’s good to hear the stories like this, where someone can build on existing experience and find good work. I can’t help but wonder, though, if there isn’t something fundamentally broken about today’s economy, making these types of positions still too few and far between. Obama et al. are working on the training/education aspect (with mixed results), but ultimately many companies seem reluctant to invest in AMERICAN workers (and the higher wages and healthcare costs they usually carry). Presumably economic demand isn’t strong enough (with exceptions of course) for them to put some of their profits at risk. So the lack of highly skilled workers to fill certain positions aside, overall there are multiple applicants for every available job.

We need to find ways to stimulate demand for things of lasting value, like energy reform, healthcare cost control, and telecom upgrades. And maybe short-term consumer demand with a revenue-neutral stimulus. Something like an oil subsidy elimination credit? Gasoline prices are now being driven largely by global demand and speculation over supply, but even if they went up somewhat, it should be offset by the credit, and potentially encourage more purchases of economical cars. The point is, some things need to be done differently in this new economy.
G. C. in Florida

I am in a similar situation. 60 years old, laid off from
a defense contractor in 2007 and delivering pizzas to survive ever since. I am
currently working on an Associates Degree in Web Graphics Design in an effort
to either find gainful employment or start my own business in that arena. Since
the lay off, I have submitted literally hundreds of resumes only to be called
for a few interviews for minimum wage part-time jobs that do not pay as well as
the pizza job.

I am fortunate that my wife still has her job which
provides medical coverage (came in handy when I had a heart attack in March)
but we have been through the same things millions have experienced; lost 401k
trying to keep a house that we lost to foreclosure and then eventually went
bankrupt to wipe out the remaining mortgage.

It would be easy to sit and sulk but I find activity to
be the key motivation to keep trying. Stories like the one recently aired on
Here and Now provide hope. Each day is another chance, as I learned from my
heart attack.
Curious

Did anyone else find Robin Young’s interview a bit off putting.

Both men interviewed were a pleasure to hear from. Dedicated to doing good work, respectful of each other, and acknowledging there’s an age issue without going on and on about it.

While Robin seemed to need to harp on it in a way that implied Richard was to be wondered at, and wondered at again, as an exception, to be somewhat pitied even though he’d found work.

The employer, eventually, clearly a bit offput, but still respectful, made a statement about not viewing sixty as that old.

Interestingly, Robin, I eventually found on the web that your photos on your site, on the small side, and a bit blurred, are probably not reflective of your current age – and that your age wasn’t immediately to be found… took a bit of sleuthing.. you’re not only pushing sixty… but beyond, maybe well beyond it… instead of identifying with your interviewee, as some interviewers would do, with grace and simply in the course of conversation, in a way that lent to the interview without intruding, you came across as someone wanting to be younger and distancing yourself from the conversation….

The best part of the interview were the interviewees.. the unfortunate part of the interview was the interviewer.
http://www.reshorenow.org Harry Moser

Michael Tamasi mentioned the reshoring trend: bringing jobs back from offshore. Boston Consulting Group and Accenture recently reported that Chinese manufacturing costs are rapidly converging on U.S. costs. For the economic trends to have a rapid impact on the behavior of major U.S. companies and thus strengthen manufacturing, however, the companies will have to calculate their total cost of offshoring. Unfortunately, most companies’ calculations are rudimentary, rather than complete, mainly comparing prices rather than the entire costs of offshoring. As a result, companies have offshored more than is in their own self interest.�
To help these companies make better sourcing decisions the non-profit Reshoring Initiative, http://www.reshorenow.org, provides for free a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) software that helps them calculate the real offshoring impact on their P&L. With clear evidence of the fragility of global supply chains, Chinese and other LLCC (Low Labor Cost Country) wages rising rapidly, the U.S. $ declining and oil soaring, this is the perfect time for U.S. companies to reevaluate their offshoring strategies and bring some of the sourcing home.
Readers can help strengthen innovation and bring back jobs by asking their companies to reevaluate offshoring decisions. Suppliers can use the TCO software to convince their customers to reshore. Both can send me cases of successful reshoring to drive the trend.
You can reach me at harry.moser@comcast.net.