When Rolaids Become One of The Five Food Groups or Over 50 & Unemployed, An Uphill Battle

In this economy, being suddenly unemployed is a disaster.  Being over 50 and unemployed is worse.  The fact is, most of the people in this group aren't unemployed because they were bad employees.  They aren't unemployed because they are unreliable, incompetent, or any of the usual reasons people frequently end up fired or without a job.  Instead they are unemployed due to cut backs.  Cut backs that hit the best paid workers first.  Cut backs that hit when a company is looking for a 'more youthful image.'  Cut backs when companies are cutting out whole departments to save money so they can stay in business.  None of this helps you when you're suddenly pounding the pavement and HAD a job that paid you well. 

While you can collect unemployment that's not the answer, you need a long term answer--better known as a new job.  The biggest problem with being unemployed is it's demoralizing!  After working 65-70 hours a week to suddenly drop to not having a job is a huge change in lifestyle.  For a week it feels like a vacation where your main meal is Rolaids, after that it's just hell.  Being out of work after working your entire life is akin to a ticket on the Titanic.  Taking on water and sinking fast.  Get into that lifeboat fast or die.

The first week you hit the big sites, Career Builder, Monster etc.  Possibly you came across listings that flatly discriminated against the older worker or the unemployed.  You were probably appalled to read many of their listings stated 'must be currently employed' or 'the unemployed will not be considered at all.'  Words to strike terror to your heart if you know the statistics for older workers and the length of time they were typically unemployed--for the 55+ workers it will take most over a year to find a new job, and that's just an average.  We're not talking about a comparable job, we're talking ANY job.  The trick is to keep on trying.

Discrimination is rampant in the world we live in, and now the newest group to be discriminated against, the old and the unemployed.  Keeping up with the newest technology is no longer enough.  Looking youthful doesn't help.  Keeping on top of the latest ideas in your field won't save you.  Your age is what it is--a number you can't change.  Being unemployed is also something you can't change, staying unemployed hopefully is. 

What's you new job every day? Your new job is job hunting, every day make an effort to find a new job, network and look for work everywhere you can think of looking.  Your new job is promoting yourself. Onward and upward! You need to get your name and face out there. And you still have the worries about how you'll pay the mortgage and reoccurring bills.  As I said, Rolaids.  Clip coupons for them.  You'll need them before your job hunt is over.  Keep reading my blog for more tips for job hunting at over 50.