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Where The Jobs Are: "55 And Older"
A good jobs report? Sure, if one is 55 and over. In December the American jobs gerontocracy continued its relentless course, and as the two charts below summarize since Obama's first term, some 2.7 million jobs in the 16-55 year old category have been lost. The "offset": 4 million jobs for Americans between 55 and 69. For all those young people graduating from college (with $150,000 in student loans) who are unable to get a job, here is our advice: tell your parents, and grandparents, to retire already. Oh wait, they can't because Bernanke destroyed their savings. Oops - better luck next time.
Job "gains" for all Americans 54 and younger vs those 55 and older:
And the same broken down by segment:
Source: BLS
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They voted for it. They wanted the islamo hipster.
Because the alternative wasn't itching to send them into Iran?!
LOL
Neocon many-valued logic and gnat-like attention span; a powerful combo.
We'll ALL be cannon fodder in the next war. Those bombs will be raining down right here in America.
Oh, we're special............that can't happen here. /s
Tell that to a frustrated 24-year-old Chinese soldier. Tell that to 'Pre-emptive' Putin.
Nobody was going to Iran. An Iranian lib slumlord is President - you do know that don't you?
Two choices old coots: (1) give the youngins a bite at the equity apple (ownership) and we'll keep paying into the failed system; or (2) take all our jobs and we'll leech off your peasant wages, occupy your basements, and refuse to show you how to work rudimentary electronic devices... until such time as you "retire".
Hey dipshit, I designed and built a great number of those electronic devices. Suffice it to say I know how they work a whole lot better than you do.
Are you representative of your generation? Are you arguing the exception or the rule?
Seth: You know you can really get trapped in that web of beepers and Zenith televisions and Walkmens and Discmans and floppy discs and zip drives, laser discs, answering machines and Nintendo Power Glove...
Linda: Wow, you know so much about technology.
-Wanderlust
I noticed the burger flippers are getting older. Supersize me, Grandpa!
But but but that's impossible, all the Obamabots are telling me that the old folks are retiring!
They ARE retiring. You are still allowed to earn WalMart greeter wages and keep getting your full SS check. Especially true if you work PART TIME.
Does that clear things up?
About the time you read that and say "but, wait.... if that's true then it's even WORSE than what I thought....." THAT'S when you got the full horror of it.
Everyone seems to be missing the 'good' part of 'good jobs'.
You are not going to get this 'good job' when the 'stupid, lazy, boomer' retires. The 'boomer' was hired 25 or more years ago in an environment where it received pension, medical, dental, etc. benefits on top of a good wage. The corporations have been very good at eliminating these people / positions, but they haven't gotten rid of them all yet. THOSE people are the number showing up as this statistic.
When five of these retire one college grad will be hired at half of one of the retirees wage with no beni's because it is an independent contractor. It will work 80 hours a week doing the work of five people and either burn out or be fired because it cannot complete the work of five people on a week-to-week basis.
So I say we applaud the last of a dying breed as they ride off into the sunset. Their kind will not be seen again
maybe they (>55 yo's) arent lazy, obese, with fat thumbs, can see only three feet to an i-phone screen and cauliflower ears
Or maybe they're so in love with their servitude, they don't know any other way?
More likely are obese and need to keep some means of acquiring blood pressure meds.
Hooligan, We do not have any facial tats metal in our faces or gages in our ears. Have you ever noticed the ears of a gageless person? They look like withered assholes.
hope I live long enough to see the " tats on wrinkles " look the moronielles will be sporting. That oughta be a real hoot !!
so many 25-55 folks went Galt .. living self sufficent lives..out of system. Nobody to loot their wages.
@Jason T
The underground economy is where it's at. If Thomas Jefferson were alive today, he'd be bartering and/or accepting only cash.
right jason,we are living with in our means,debt free, but out of the system? no, we still get hit by property taxes,sales tax, health care cost, rising food and energy cost. the system will get you no matter what you do it's just a matter of how hard you get hit!
Which makes 'LIVIN IN THE BASEMENT'... in reality... a sensible choice... Fuck the 'stigma'... If they're so inclined, let all your phony jerk friends carry the load (while you keep stacking in the basement & bone up on horticulture & engineering)...
I plus'ed you. You're right, it's not easy. I exagerated to see response but seriously, I think smart folks have this desire for sure. I know I do. well, on the front of self sufficiency at least, I still want to contribute to society. Food and energy can totally be done however. Property tax is only concern, just don't live in expensive neighborhood.
Food and energy are my concentration of being self sufficient. Can put a huge dent in that part for sure. Have an electric powered car and have own solar panels to charge, there's your car power.
Home Economics needs a revolution.
you pay no property taxes or health care and you get food stamps and free power when you are out of work PLUS you get u/e benefits this is the chart that explains it all
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-01-01/meanwhile-americas-other-cliff-...
you only need to work as hard as a shelf stacker to earn the equivalent of 69,000
If greedy CEOs/boards gave up 1-2 cents EPS per quarter and put the money back into all the training programs they ditched between 1985-2005, masses of young people would get work, buy homes, start to invest.
But the cocksuckers are too busy buying 4th and 5th homes.
Back in the 90s the semiconductor co I worked for made everyone take 40 hours of training per year. That stopped in 2001, as employees became a liability.
The youth have more training than ever and are more qualified than their predecessors. CEO's wouldn't even need to give up any EPS to get them into the workforce. The age preference simply needs to be ended. It is illegal. It is immoral. At least "grandpa" has a lifetime of savings and social security/medicare to fall back upon. The young people, nothing except for debt.
Hey, don't forget that this is what WAR is for...to take all those protesting, unemployed youth and put them on the front lines!
And then the old die and the young are dead because of the war... leaving you with... illegal immigrants!
that seems so accurate
A by-product of regulatory capture by the banking cartel, who want to be the only ones allowed to collect interest (money for nothing). Gee, allow mom and dad to actually generate a return by investing their savings and things might have actually turned around (ignoring the energy issue of course). Apparently, allowing anyone, other than the Fed, to collect interest is bad and society is quite comfortable with sacraficing it's children already. This should end well (for those properly positioned). Same as it ever was.
I don't understand this trend. You'd think employers would want the cheap (young and healthy) workers. What am I missing?
Old people actually show up to work
The older workers listen, are courteous, don't wear iPODs, know how to count and make change, and are capable of reading and writing.
+1
Old folks are not texting all day and updating their Facebook page too. ;-)
I had to hire someone about 6 years ago. The young people never even showed up for the interview.
The older person who was hired was there everyday, you could trust them with the keys, they never let you down, etc.
F TV, F Hollywood and F Facebook.
sharky2003,
What you're missing? Medicare or other paid health care.
If you are producing icrap, then yes, you want cheap workers. If you are trying to actually innovate or produce a product of high quality that must be dependable and not break down (like a nuclear reactor), you need intelligent, experienced workers. Could be a good or bad sign for the eCONomy. I still see some serious structural problems out there. Older workers tend to have a much better work ethic as well.
Have you tried to hire and keep a 'young' employee lately?
Most suck, are unreliable, expect to make 100K/year, and have a entitlement mentality.
The single young Moms are the best. They hardley ever show up. Kids sick - no one to look after them. Kid has a doctors appt. no one else to take them.
Not all of them but so many of them fall into this category.
As an employer I get a first hand look at how fucked we are as a country when I look at the younger generation (btw I work with Kids too - don't even get me started).
that is exactly what I have been hearing for years, a young person who is punctual, dresses appropriate for the workplace, and can communicate is gold and will get raises and additional hours and opportunites. So many cannot put together a simple resume.
I was tasked with training two new mechanics (A&P), went out to the plane and as I started setting up all the equipment and get everything going, they had found a spot on the floor in the hangar and spent all the time texting and would ignore everything I told them about what to do. Fortunately was able to get rid of one of them, the other somehow managed to stay on.
I cannot understand the mentality of my peers. As a 'young' employee out of grad school I logged over 100 hours of overtime - unpaid - during my first year at my current job. I figured all that work would safeguard my job during the inevitable firing cycles that happen.
Most people I know have never seen a 40-hour work week, and are living at home out of college, with vague speculations on 'grad school', and the accompanying delusions of grandeur that go with it.
I think the crisis comes from the realization that they will never have what their parents had - home ownership, car ownership, etc... It's a generation of renters. Riches to rags, basically.
(a) none of these jobs come with provided healthcare or any other perk;
(b) the perception of work ethic is that older persons have a better work ethic;
(c) while a young person dreams to achieve greater than these jobs, the old person has no choice, knowing full well that winter is coming and he has yet to squirrel away enough nuts;
(d) experience;
(e) pity; and
(f) supplemental income (young workers have debt/dependent children; older workers have assets/pensions/SS/independent children/etc.)...
among others...
re: (e) pity WTF?
Piety
• a belief or point of view that is accepted with unthinking conventional reverence
Pity... the feeling of sadness or sorrow for the elderly... whereas youngsters get no such thing.
"What am I missing?"
They aren't paying for healthcare for these old folks (the 29-hour per-week McJob) so their age doesn't matter and minimum wage is minimum wage regardless of your age.
The scumiest generation continue their reign.
Maybe the cheap, young, healthy workers can't read?
Maybe the young, healthy workers are making a lot more money slinging dope to you.
At least 55 year olds and up can read and write past a 6th grade level.
I took a part time job 3 months ago rather than sit home and read ZH all day like I was doing.
My mother is thinking about going back to work because her CDs bear so little interest that she can't afford not to. She's 84!
Thanks, Bernanke!
Jobs are over rated! Why work when everything can be free? Oh wait........... I'm a white male.
Just claim your disabled. Plenty of police and firemen do it to get early retirement.
In the increasingly retail-only available distro of jobs, they will predominantly be kept by the responsible among us who show up to work, even when their knees and back hurt, aren't prone to decide to go to "burning man", or show up with pinwheel eyes on ecstasy talking about how they "looooove the customers".
"As he came near they all stopped their work to gaze upon him, for to them he appeared like a messenger of the Fairy Folk or an angel from heaven. He set his hand to the boulder, and with a mighty heave he lifted? it from where it lay and set it rolling down the hill. And the men raised a shout of wonder and applause; but their shouting changed in a moment into cries of terror and dismay; Oisin fell feeble and staggering, a man stricken with extreme old age."
Obama will put the 20 somethings to work fighting a war the banksters will make loads of money from.
Timeline like that of the 1930s. Stocks crash, currency devaluation (now), then a huge war.
We are at the devaluation stage.
55 year olds vote, hence why they get the jobs.
The younger people don't vote because, we know its all bullshit - so, ergo, we don't get jobs (or at least good ones that can help us pay our living expenses, never mind debt).
Yep. Young folks don't watch the MSM BS on TV... the only ones still believing the government and media propaganda are the old folks.
And your conclusion is, watching the MSM BS on TV gets you a job?
They don't watch much TV, they're too busy working, and wouldn't watch shit like "Dancing with the Stars" if you paid them....
I think his point is that the MSM/TV tells the older folk who watch this fodder how to get in line, what political bullshit to parrot when confronted with "facts", and how to think towards each other (i.e, create divisions that distract people from talking about the REAL issues).
In essence, get in fucking line. if you get in line and take on this debt like we tell you to, and don't question it, and defend this corrput system, you will be "rewarded" for it.
TV and Hollywood are such total sh*t. It is for idiots and retards. The morons still believe the crap on TV.
Is this supposed to be sarcastic? Sometimes its hard to tell...
Would love to see the same breakdown, but for "with college degree" and "without college degree" split...compare it with 2005 and watch the agg income dragging exodus from productive labor to subsistence employment.
I dunno since 2005 (would love to know this number, GMad!), but here are those numbers for 2012:
Employment change over 2012, by education: HS or less -192k; Some college +563k; College+: +1.68million
What's funny is the fact that various think tanks, including this from the World Economic Forum, continue to somewhat spread this myth that young people, around the world, are "unemployable":
This is where the problem stems: the issue isn't that people are unemployable. The issue is the fact that capital was extracted from the potential working class to the hands of government and financial oligarchs, through fraud, and protected by force.
If corporations, banks, and governments thought that this was such a "critical" issue, incomes wouldn't have declined by 11% in the last 30 years.
We don't have a skills gap. We have an income gap.
I think the real problem is an ear-gap...in employers.
Modern corps do not train people anymore instead relying on the vagaries of headhunters and other phrenologists to try to ferret out just the right talent (which, paradoxically, induces people to switch jobs more often so every company is constantly rebuilding expertise that walks out the door!).
I compare this with my own experience of working in industry on the cheap while in school for local businesses that were willing to take on smart but inexperienced kids and give them a mentor and "real work" (in my case, learning C and how to write compilers...skills I still use today in many different ways).
This is where real productivity gains come from!
They still do, but the inexperienced kids now live in India, have their 3 month IT degree from a local PolyTech Institute, and work for about USD $10 per DAY.
GMad and RBriggs on point, here.
Another reason why corps rely on headhunters: they usually don't give those folks benefits, which of course, are costs that go right into the employer's pocket.
Most employers are in ad hoc to big banks and to their shareholders on Wall Street.
Well, the environments of these corporations due to the above points does not help this (read Charles Hugh Smith's great essay on how this is effecting workers' mental health, and income streams, in Japan).
Eliminating bonuses and wage increases that keep up with REAL inflation. The death of collective bargaining (unless you are a hockey player). And of course, this high unemployment rate which has not only kept the steady stat of 5 people looking for every job, but also lowered the "quit" rate (which generally measures that better jobs are being created in the economy as people leave jobs that suck). And, the majority of us are in debt; so we really can't negotiate freely until our private debts are paid because unlike bankers, we actually oblidge to pay our debts (or at least try to).
This of course, was all a part of the Neo-Liberal plan by The Maestro, Alan Greenspan.
Just another example of lying with statistics.
There go the Boomers again trying to keep it all for themselves and trying to take it all with them. It's not going to work.
You drank the "Class Warfare" kool-aide, just like you were supposed to. Sheep.
Indeed. Globalization and financialization of the US economy is always ignored which is the root cause of the massive imbalances.
Trying to keep themselves off catfood as the sword of austerity hangs over their heads is more like it.
Damocles, surely?
I picked the wrong time to be 25-54.
I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeI5ke0BENw
Fucking brilliant here.
I always blame my parents for eloping 5 years too late for me:
I was:
- 5 years late when college was affordable (it balooned at an avg tuition hike rate, here in MA, by 10-12% per year.....pricing me out of an education).
- 5 years late to the tech-dot-com boom-bust (I graduated HS....just when it was bursting)
- 3-5 years late during the online poker boom (I made some money at the tail end of it, but then players got better and the govt shut it down before I can accrue wealth in easier games)
Understood. I completely missed the housing bullshit bubble because Clinton and the republican congress voted to outsource my former profession and I had to find another career and thus had to move instead of the lucky job demographic that didn't see their employer(s) leave the country.
Yeah, Millennials (b. 1982-2002) are screwed, all around. Xers (b. 1961-1981) are, too, but not as bad. I'm at the tail end of X, and was 20 years old, trading tech stocks in 1999/2000. Lost my ass in that ($40k was my ass, at that time). It took me a while to recover, so I missed the housing bubble. I'll be looking forward to buying a house in the 2020s, when prices have bottomed.
None of us, even Boomers, will miss the final Debt Bubble. however. It's taking us all down.
The first economic system that guarantees jobs for all will win the 21st century.
This very likely excludes capitalism for sure.
Do posters agree?
:-/
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/01/03/168546069/five-years-of-a-brut...
Those w/ jobs, keep slaving away. The long arm of the Federal gov. grabs that SS $ and gives it to me. I don't need it but take it anyway. Don't blame me! I did'nt do it!
So said Ida May Fuller, the first recipient of SS benefits. She contributed $24.75 into the system and received $24,288 in benefits. Quite a deal. The Boomers will be the last true SS recipients. Xers and Millennials are out of luck.
Like Greenspan said, in testimony to the Senate Banking Committee, in 2005, "We can guarantee cash benefits as far out and whatever size you like, but we cannot guarantee their purchasing power."
and SS benefits came into being because of the banker induced credit bubble of the 20's blew up and destroyed life savings of millions after 1929. The irony is surreal
Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal ~ Albert Camus
This is reason so many professionals loathe their job. They don't dislike the work but the character they must assume to work.
Precisely. Working in Corporate America is akin to being thrown into a leechpit. To get along in this environment, one must assume a completely disconnected persona, going against everything it means to be human.
At 55, I'd love to retire, but can't. Here's why.
After 1989 when the Soviet Union collapsed, when capitalists figured out that they didn't have to give a crap about workers forming unions or going communist, retirement dissappeared from new jobs, outsourcing started gaining steam, and wages started edging down. Putting away enough for retirement requires that you have something to put away. That suddenly became a lot more difficult, particularly if you have the bad taste to get cancer or some other expensive illness. So what many of us have are a few small investments, a pittance in our 401K and social security that we've paid into. The choice is continuing to work, and be able to pay the bills and have luxuries like a car to get to work, and an extra sweater, or abject poverty. Planning is nice, when empires don't fall, social contracts matter, the medical system doesn't become a wealth extraction device (i.e. "Pay up or die!") and company retirement contracts are honored.
The ambient wealth of the USA was created in large part by baby boomers and their parents. Dams, buildings, roads, financial and physical infrastructure. It didn't just happen and none of it was free. So, you want me to retire? Well, pay up, or shut up. Up social security so I *can* retire without resorting to cat food and beans, and I'll cheerfully get out of your way.
I've seen some 6 people retire in the past 2 months but very few can because of what the schmucks in DC have done the past 20-30 years. Smoot-Hawley of the 30's has been ravaged by propaganda, what exactly would we lose with balance restoring tariffs? we need nothing from China but fireworks and magnets...they buy debt to keep the ponzi going
Wow...this is an astonishing statistic considering that the under 55-16 crowd is more than 3 times larger than the 55-69 plus group.
http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-03.pdf
I got to conclude that what few jobs are being created are going to the more experienced boomers but at lower wage commensurable to more entry level work.
Man...this is dismal news....
My only solution is to use the current US surplus of NGas to create fertilizers to grow a bumper crop of Soylent Green.</lol>
I haven't read all of the comments on this thread so if I repeat something that has been pointed out earlier, I'm sorry.
I have many friends/ former co workers that have retired in the last few years or so. We have a defined pension plan where I work that will pay out at a certain number of years of service no matter how old you are. Most of these retires are in their early to late 50's and have retired because it's free money so to speak.
Almost *all* of them are working now. And they are working in jobs that pay around 10 bucks an hour with absolutely no benefits. You see, they don't need things like medical and dental care because their pension already pays for these things. This makes them attractive workers: they aren't going to hound you for raises because they already have an income and there is no pressure to provide expensive healthcare coverage. I believe this is the reason that the 55+ group is gaining jobs at the expense of the younger groups. They are more than willing to accept less because for most part these jobs represent supplemental income. I'm sure they'd be happy with higher wages and additional benefits but at the end of the day, their wages are merely extra money "to make ends meet" or in many cases pocket money. I'm not saying that they don't need it -- inflation has ravaged pensioners -- but their "career" expectations are quite different from say, a 25 year old who hopes to earn enough to support himself.
Spot on
Our reserve currency curse got us into this mess by enabling us to avoid severe economic corrections while furthering the outsourcing of jobs via Globalism, (with China and international corporations as the main beneficiaries).
One should go to first causes for the reasons for our precipitous moral decline, our destructive suspension of reality, and ultimately for our stone dead economy.
We had it all, and then the entrenched financial interests decided to make it a game in which they could not possibly lose. And at first the poison tasted sweet even to the general public for the most part, what with the torrent of credit being extended with few limits.
The pushers still hold sway, but the junkies are now in severe withdrawal and getting restive. It won't be long until the pistol comes out of the waistband to stop the whining and thrashing about.
The way I interpret this is the prime workers who expect full-time work are getting laid off and being replaced by the old and young who are satisfied with part-time work.