Unemployed Babyboomers
In 2008, I had worked from home as a skip tracer for over 10 years. Skip tracers locate missing people and in my case, missing cars. I held self-employment contracts with several Fortune 500 companies. I located automobiles that had been financed with them, and the debtor had stopped paying for them.
The day came when I felt the sting of hard times, and of unemployment. One by one, the companies with whom I had held contracts began to move their skip tracing positions in-house. They stopped sub-contracting with outside people, such as myself, to locate their missing automobiles.At the age of 56, at the time, I faced an unemployed life as a baby boomer. I had become a statistic.Nebraska’s Government’s websitereports that unemployment for people in my age bracket is nearly 80%.
For over two years now, my attempt to enter a job market saturated with young, ‘fresh from college’ applicants has been futile. Although I possess skills other than skip tracing, I cannot compete with those who have college degrees, and youth on their side.It is illegal to refuse to hire someone based on the person’s age, if the person is over 18. Potential employers have never revealed that my age is the reason for not hiring me, but I have suspected it many times. My self-esteem has been at an all time low, and I simply cannot believe that with all of my years in management, along with other marketable skills, that no one wants to hire me. Is it really just my age? It is certainly not due to a lack of experience or skills.
I eventually applied for jobs that were for less pay, and which did not require any of my skills. I was not hired for any of the following positions: fast food worker, house-cleaner, caregiver for seniors, cashier, ironing shirts at a laundry.
When people are younger baby boomers, like us, there is no help outside of their own personal efforts. We have no children at home, so we cannot apply forgovernment helpfor any of the programs that cater to families with children. We are too young for any of the Uncle Sam programs that cater to seniors. We make too much money with my husband’s job for food stamps. In addition, unemployment compensations are not available to self-employed people.We have cut back on every financial expense that we can. We disconnected our home phone, we dropped some life insurance, and we mostly heat our home with a wood-burning stove during the winters.
Currently, I have decided to pursue my lifelong passion of writing. I am attempting to replace my lost income with something that I really want to do. There is no age barrier to creating my own job with online writing.
As for the financial recovery, it will be a long road, but I will get there, and no one will refuse to hire me for simply being too old.
