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More seniors want work; more employers want seniors

Al Benezra, 81, barely knew a washing machine from a dishwasher a year ago, but today he’s one of the top appliance sales specialists at Home Depot in San Leandro, Calif.

When a customer came by earlier this week to discuss her kitchen remodel, he spent a good 20 or 30 minutes walking her through all the options for microwaves, stoves, dishwashers and refrigerators. “Sit down, relax,” he urged her as he looked up specifications on the computer.

“He’s wonderful. He’s patient and really hears what you’re saying, which is not that common,” said the customer, Genny Lynn.

Benezra, who had worked most of his life as a produce buyer for a wholesaler, came to Home Depot last year as part of a wave of older people eager to return to the workforce.

Call them silver-collar workers. Home Depot joined with AARP last February to say it welcomed “mature workers” and was swamped with inquiries. Now AARP has signed up 12 more major companies, including Walgreens, Borders, Pitney Bowes and MetLife (the full list is at www.aarp.org/featuredemployers), that are actively seeking to recruit older workers.

“We thought this would hit a nerve with a handful of people who wanted to work at Home Depot,” said Emily Allen, director of the workforce initiative at AARP, the giant Washington group that represents 35 million older Americans. “It was incredible how much interest it generated. We had hundreds of thousand of calls and millions of hits on the Web site.”

In part, that may be because many older workers fear rejection if they cold-call.

“We are told frequently by clients they feel they are being skipped over, ” said Jane Robinson, program director of Assets Senior Employment Opportunities in Oakland, a federally funded program to help older workers find jobs. “We see many cases where we’re pretty confident there is (age) discrimination, but it’s hard to pin down.”

For many older job applicants, returning to work is an economic necessity, while others welcome the chance to get benefits such as health insurance and more social interaction. Staying mentally and physically active and remaining productive were cited as the major reasons to work by retirees surveyed by AARP in 2003.

Whatever the reason, statistics show that more elders work or want to work. “We’re seeing bigger labor force participation among people 65-plus,” said Loree Levee, a spokeswoman for the California Employment Development Department.

Benezra returned to work both for the money and the stimulation. He was subsisting on Social Security and savings, but when his 52-year-old son was a victim of a dot-com going belly-up, he needed extra income to help his son get back on his feet - and he found staying home boring.

Benezra went to Assets, which provided several months of training, including computer skills, a temporary subsidized re-entry job at its office, and coaching on skills like resume writing. “It was really good because they helped us learn what was going on in this new world,” he said.

He applied after Assets told him Home Depot was interested in older workers, got the job and went for several weeks of training.

“Older workers bring a level of maturity and life experience to the job,” said Michael Polzin, a spokesman for Walgreens. “Because our stores are very health oriented and tend to have a lot of older consumers coming to the pharmacy and then shopping other parts of the store, an older worker can empathize with some of our customers better and can relate to their needs.”

Still, plenty of companies haven’t embraced the silver-collar workforce.

“It’s a great thing that these companies are (working with AARP to seek mature workers), but are they having an impact on the rest of the labor market?” said Larry Robbin, executive director of Robbin and Associates, a firm that provides training and consultation to workforce development organizations nationwide.

“At the same time you have some employers hiring more older workers, you also have an incredibly youth-driven culture in many companies that keeps older workers out of the picture because of lack of culture fit.”

Companies that have eschewed mature workers soon will have little choice as the population ages.

If the 77 million boomers born between 1946 and 1964 were all to retire at the traditional age of 65, labor force growth would slow dramatically, economists said. But many plan to keep working.

Eight in 10 boomers expect to work in retirement, according to a 2003 AARP/Roper survey in 2003. Only 7 percent expected to be in a full-time job, though, while 25 percent said they’d work part time for income and 30 percent said they’d work part time for enjoyment. An additional 15 percent said they’d like to start their own business in retirement.

Many elders and boomers who choose to keep working will prefer high-level jobs - whether as consultants or part-time professionals. AARP said the 13 employers it works with are seeking workers for all types of positions, from entry-level to managerial, including highly skilled professionals.