Forced out of work and pushing 60 Whats next for older workers

Forced out of work and pushing 60 Whats next for older workersForced out of work and pushing 60 Whats next for older workersBy any measure, Elizabeth White has had a stellar career. A graduate of Harvard and Johns Hopkins University, she began her working life at the World Bank, focusing on international development. Then she started her own business, which got its goods into places like Macys Herald Square but eventually failed after eight years, taking her savings with it. She was 47.She took two well-paying consultancies after that, stitching together a six-figure income for seven years until both gigs ended. She found herself unemployed at 55, and unable to find real work it took her two years to find a new job, which lasted for only two years. Then she was out of work yet again, this time on the edge of 60.White was on the edge in other ways financially, emotionally. Eventually, she found a group of friends in the same position and began to open up to them about the realitie s of being middle-aged, marginally employed, and financially insecure.Elizabeth White (Photo Mig Dooley)Her experience and that of those like her inspired her to write 55, Underemployed, and Faking Normal Your Guide to a Better Life. In it, she encourages readers to form Resilience Circles with people in circumstances like theirs, as she did, and read and discuss the book together like a Lean In group, but for people struggling with age discrimination and other reasons keeping them out of the workplace.White is part of a larger trend where working until 65 is no longer a guarantee. A recentProPublica study showed that older workers are increasingly being pushed out of work before they can retire. Half of all workers over 50 are hustled out of their jobs against their will, the study found.White spoke with the Ladders about her new book, the power of Baby Boomers, and the future of work after 50.1. On people should anticipate the possibility of being booted out of the workplace 10 years before retirement, and prepare to fill the gap in employment by working a myriad of jobs.Yes, in that we are entering a period of financial insecurity.Many of us are going to be forced to create what I call an interesting casserole of work. Hopefully, it is a casserole that is aligned with your values, and you have different kinds of income streams. For it to really work, its about getting your expenses down. I dont just mean having a budget. Do you really need 4,000 square feet? What do you really need?For me, my casserole is consulting, its speaking, and its writing. For somebody else, it might look like something else. I have many friends, woman friends, who have an income stream with Airbnb. Many of them are empty-nesters. If you look at Airbnbs numbers, the fastest-growing segment is women over 50. And then they might do a little consulting and something else.The interesting casserole is where I think a lot of people are going to land, and its hard to sustain if you have some huge, expensive lifestyle because its feast or famine.2. On there are many misconceptions about older people who find themselves in this situation.We live in a culture where bootstrap ingenuity is prized. The truth is that bootstrap ingenuity is no match for disappearing pensions. Its no match for flat and falling wages. No match for the escalating cost of healthcare. Your agency and personal will are elend going to overcome rampant age discrimination and big global trends in automation and robotics. So this notlageion that this is all a personal responsibility issue and if you just worked harder is the mythology.That said, Im not saying that everybody could not have saved more. Im not saying I could not have saved more. Im saying that when you have this many people who have landed here Theres something bigger happening.3. On out-of-work Boomers have a huge effect on the economy.People over 50 are over 50% of the spend on apparel, 50% on trucks and cars, 50% on entertainment. So when you dont hire people, or hire them in jobs where they are dramatically underemployed, there is a consequence We are huge drivers in the economy of what were spending. I want to see a more muscular conversation about what Boomers contribute and more multigenerational workplaces. Im not a fan of this false feud between millennials and Boomers Millennials are our children.4. On Find your community When I was going through the worst of it, other friends of mine, we had started to talk. They really provided the scaffolding that we held each other up. We were able to talk candidly. In D.C., nobodys talking about their financial woes You get no points talking about that youre struggling. I want people who are feeling alone, who are feeling this whole shaming-and-blaming thing, and who are leveled by this, to be able to meet and have a place to gain their footing and share resources.5. and let them help.I meet a lot of people who are in such pain, who are sort of full up with em otion. And so, even if they get an interview lets say, they get called in when they get there, theyre what I call leaking. So the person who is interviewing them may not know whats going on with them, they just know, I dont want that in my work environment. Its because they seem a little off, they seem a little intense, they seem a little full of emotion. People dont want that on their team, they dont want that on their project. They dont know what it is.And so the other thing that I think the Resilience Circles do is allow people to vent, to kind of dial that emotion down a bit, so that when you go into an environment where you need to perform, youre not bringing all of that.I meet people who are in that state all the time. I get to see through our interactions the talent thats there that were not able to access because people dont have a place where they can see that theyre not the only ones. Theyre not by themselves.And so my hope with the Resilience Circles is to provide a new frame for people to understanding, which can ultimately be empowering.