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I really lucked out by retiring 9 years ago about when the recession started. Many people age 50 or especally if older may never work again., Already they have been out of work a long time and unemployment insurance has long gone.
So their drawing down their savings accounts intended for retirement just to live now when they should be working.
I was a machinist during the heyday of aerospace industry in southern Calif. Again I lucked out, Its greatly reduced now, kids today have much less chance of working in that field anyway.
It was a satisfying trade and today considered a good paying trade although I never thought so back then.
So many of us who retired before the recession just made it.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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I'm glad for your good timing, but others have made it through the recession OK. I got a new job at age 57 in 2009, and have had 2 promotions since, I plan to work to 68-70 and give a boost to my pension and SS payments. We recently got a new Director who is 58, and a new managing director exact age unknown but is over 60. In some fields experience is far more important than recent education, and with many of our jobs requiring 10-15 years experience people are going to be older.
It generally depends on your skills, your age, and where you got laid off, then sought work at.
I'm from a manufacturing town in rural TN. In hindsight, the economy was never great there. People have historically been poorer than national averages, but most folks got by in mining and manufacturing. Most of the manufacturing has declined, and that hit the Boomers the hardest. The folks who were laid off were often older, not well educated, and have been out of the workforce since then or only marginally employed. Some went on disability, others work under the table, and some who had spouses still employed basically just dropped out altogether. My dad was laid off from a factory at 51, refused to relocate, and has been stuck in a call center for seven years since then, having gone from $50k or so down to $35k, while commuting 100 miles a day. That story, and usually more severe cases, is repeated throughout Appalachia.
Most of the people I know (admittedly, not that many) in larger metros or relocated to a larger metro from a small town/rural area have done better.
I grew up witnessing steel mills, ship building / retrofitting, electronics manufacturing, metal fab, etc, etc, all within a 50 mile radius. It was not only blue collar, there were many engineers, techs and other "white collar" people supporting the activity. Meanwhile also inside the same radius was all the R&D supporting new product introduction. Even by the standards of the 1970s it was an expensive place to manufacture (labor, energy, real estate, etc) but having everything close by assured excellent concurrent engineering and quality practices. The person designing the product could go meet the people building it then maintain the relationship ongoing.
At some point, some pointy headed yuppies (and even some unconscionable more experienced people who knew better) determined it would be better if all this was moved out of the area, either to less expensive states or even out of the country entirely. Sure, overhead appeared to decrease (oh, but what about logistics, quality and several other hard to quantify on a balance sheet costs). But something was lost, and I am talking about something even beyond jobs.
Regarding the jobs, they are now in low cost domestic geos, Mexico, China, you name it.
History is a nasty task master and we will live to regret this arrangement.
Scenario. For a variety of reasons, you are tasked to design, source and realize a new weapon system or control system, using only components and materials from North America and Western Europe. And by components I mean at the lowest level - printed circuit boards, SMT components, semiconductors (including the wafers, the packages, etc). By materials, I mean all raw materials including rare earth minerals. All assembly operations (from assembling semiconductors into packages, to metal fab, to all subassemblies, to SMT, etc) are to be done in North America. Good luck!
Last edited by BayAreaHillbilly; 09-09-2015 at 03:35 PM..
That's because this is not an economic recovery. We are still on the downslope.
Don't expect the news media to tell you this. If they told the truth, people would panic.
So what inside information and expertise do you have which allows you to make pronouncements from on high? I'll take the New York Times over poster Nor-Eastah any day!
I really lucked out by retiring 9 years ago about when the recession started. Many people age 50 or especally if older may never work again., Already they have been out of work a long time and unemployment insurance has long gone.
Just imo, this is not a "recession" thing. It's a permanent economy shift.
Whether one is young or old, the era of secure employment with benefits is over.
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