Are We Written Off At 55 plus ?

dickydonkin

Tempus_Fugit wrote: »

Watched the programme. The stats they were announcing were a bit depressing - people aged 50 plus will find it more difficult than other age groups to get a job.

Posters on the board are a bit more upbeat and keeping a positive outlook seems to be crucial.

I am certainly not disputing that there are difficulties for jobseekers over 50 in the current climate, I have been there, but that applies to any jobseeker irrespective of age unfortunately.

Yes, it did paint a negative picture for the people involved in the programme, but it is just a shame that there were no positives - I am sure the programme researchers could have found examples of where people in similar positions to the subjects have found work.

At least this forum has provided examples of where working lives do not end at 50.

Yes, it is demoralising and the rejections can and do get you down at times but all I can suggest is just keep plugging away and hopefully perseverence pays off.

Jowo_2

sagalout1954 wrote: »

Think there's a programme on tonight, BBC2 Panorama which will discuss the difficulty faced by the over 50's trying to find employment.

This programme is on the iplayer and is definately worth a watch.

Depressingly, a lot of the focus on it seemed to be insinuating that the candidates on it were out of touch with modern recruitment practices and had to forget about finding the type of work and level of salary they enjoyed before.

Perhaps this is true but it seemed to show 4 experienced and motivated professionals who basically were told to forget that they would ever get a similar position again, telling them to retrain, move, become self employed or do voluntary work.

So I thought it was quite a shame that they were essentially told they were out of touch and were not likely to find work of a similar status as before. It was horrible to see people with such shattered morale.

However, perhaps that's the reality of the market - they've got such narrow job searches and high requirements that they are seeking the type of roles that largely don't exist anymore?

tim123456789

Jowo wrote: »

This programme is on the iplayer and is definately worth a watch.

Depressingly, a lot of the focus on it seemed to be insinuating that the candidates on it were out of touch with modern recruitment practices and had to forget about finding the type of work and level of salary they enjoyed before.

Perhaps this is true but it seemed to show 4 experienced and motivated professionals who basically were told to forget that they would ever get a similar position again, telling them to retrain, move, become self employed or do voluntary work.

So I thought it was quite a shame that they were essentially told they were out of touch and were not likely to find work of a similar status as before. It was horrible to see people with such shattered morale.

However, perhaps that's the reality of the market - they've got such narrow job searches and high requirements that they are seeking the type of roles that largely don't exist anymore?

Except that they do - just not to 50 year olds. Why on earth should an experience surveyor or financial controller need to retrain? There is definitely a demand for such skills and not using already trained people in the roles that the are trained for is just nuts

ceridwen

Jowo wrote: »

This programme is on the iplayer and is definately worth a watch.

Depressingly, a lot of the focus on it seemed to be insinuating that the candidates on it were out of touch with modern recruitment practices and had to forget about finding the type of work and level of salary they enjoyed before.

Perhaps this is true but it seemed to show 4 experienced and motivated professionals who basically were told to forget that they would ever get a similar position again, telling them to retrain, move, become self employed or do voluntary work.

So I thought it was quite a shame that they were essentially told they were out of touch and were not likely to find work of a similar status as before. It was horrible to see people with such shattered morale.

However, perhaps that's the reality of the market - they've got such narrow job searches and high requirements that they are seeking the type of roles that largely don't exist anymore?

I watched most of this programme - but had to switch it off as too depressing by far (ie because I'm over 50 myself:cool:). I DID think it was very harsh an attitude displayed towards them - and no acknowledgement at all of the fact that people who have worked/fought/studied their way up to a certain level of job and pay DO feel upset/aggrieved (and I would say - deservedly so) if there is little or no account taken of everything they have achieved so far. When something has been hard-won/long anticipated/etc/etc - then being expected to just go back and start from afresh at very much the same point as one entered the workforce on IS very very demoralising/cause of anger, etc indeed and I was getting very upset for these people that it felt like everything they had achieved to date was just being totally dismissed out of hand.:(. The question didnt even seem to arise of "Right - you've got to x/y/z level of achievement/salary/status now - so how can we match you to an equivalent in a different type of job". To me - it didnt feel very different in attitude to what a school-leaver would expect (ie having achieved nothing at that point in time)....:(.

To me personally - I would say that my own personal attitude is probably a pretty common one in those of use who are 50 to retirement age. It could be summed up as "Yep...prepared to retrain...think again as to what line of work I do. Thats accepted and I understand that. BUT BUT BUT...DO bear in mind I have already achieved a certain level of pay/status/etc/etc/etc on the one hand and either cant afford to pay for retraining/or dont see why I should pay for retraining myself personally on the other hand. SO - result is - yep...I'm prepared/willing to retrain...but it cannot be at MY own expense in anyway and DO please acknowledge how much I have achieved to date (ie rather than just dismissing it as meaningless/outdated/etc)." So - as a middle-aged person - its a request from me to stop dismissing what we have/where we are at out of hand and also stop expecting us to go back to "starter level" incomes (we've already gone on beyond that...) on the other hand. We have "done our bit" by being prepared/willing to retrain and think in terms of a totally different type of job - so I dont think its at all unreasonable for us to expect that Society as a whole accepts that we have reached/sometimes need to maintain the pay and/or status etc we have already achieved...

Must admit here to an absolute personal "bugbear" about peeps expecting me to even consider things like antisocial hours jobs/huge amount of "commuting"/etc when this simply was NOT the way things were for many of us when we first started work all those years back. Once one has established a certain "standard" the fact that we would/might be prepared to accept lower "standards" if we were YEARS younger and starting out again is neither here nor there. We have achieved what we have achieved and established what our "norm" is and it is a backwards step for anyone to expect us to give up what we already have....so please dont be surprised if we react rather strongly to any suggestion that we should accept less than what we are used to (and that was "nothing special" in any way - just the norm...)...

dark_lady

Brilliantly put Ceridwen. I really enjoy reading your posts.
Before the programme even started i knew they would be twisting it so they could lay the blame on the unemployed. I thought the attitude towards them was extremely bloody patronising especially that of Digby Jones. Ughh he makes my skin crawl.