My husband was laid off recently as part of these big high tech layoffs that they call employment reductions. The stock market loved it as the company’s stocks jumped up. Our family did not love it so much!
It was not a surprise, we did see it coming. Each week a different division was closed and emails started bouncing back from those laid off. So we planned the best that we could, prepared for the worst but yet, still hoped for the best.
Fortunately for us, all our kids graduated college, our house is almost paid off and our finances are all set. Working in the high tech industry forces you to plan, we saw the highs and the lows and went through two previous layoffs. Luckily I work in a stable industry and have a relatively good health plan, not as good or as subsidized as the high tech company one, but still affordable.
So technically, we are ok. However we are at a different point in our lives, we are in our late fifties, not really looking for a new career, just looking for something that will carry him over for the next ten years until real retirement. But it is not easy, looking for a job in your late fifties, early sixties has its own challenges.
With the years of experience you have, the over qualification is a challenge. Age discrimination is another challenge, having an insecure interviewer who does not like to see anyone with “too Much” experience and the biggest problem is when you yourself have no real idea of what you want to do. As part of my husband’s severance package he had career counseling. They recommended removing so many things from his resume- dates, so no one can figure out how old he is. Remove older jobs, so his resume will not be a million pages long, support group for the newly unemployed that only made him more depressed as everyone sounded miserable and unhappy about not being able to find a new job.
Finding yourself and your passion is not easy when you have one eye set on retirement , on the one hand you still need an income and might not be looking for a 20 year career and even if you are, whoever is looking to hire is thinking the same, this person is not worth investment as he or she will probably retire soon anyway.
And as much as I am a firm believer that you need to reinvent yourself every ten years, not everyone is capable of doing so. When we are employed, we get set in our ways and are comfortable in the way everything is going so that we don’t always look for the next phase, especially for our generation. We need to step outside of our comfort zone and plan a little. We must continually invest in ourselves, learn new skills, update our resumes every six months, check job posts every couple of months, continually network with our peers and keep up with changes in the employment sectors as there are no guarantees. On the other hand, planning a rainy day fund, adjusting it as needed to whatever stage in life we are so big surprised, do not catch as un ready as much as we can.
My husband’s new path is still unclear and it is definitely not easy for him emotionally, but he has not given up yet. For now, I shall enjoy having a house husband!
Schpilkes The Blog 