Older Workers Taking Jobs from Young People?
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
The findings were presented yesterday as part of the Chamber’s “Business Over Easy” event series.
The report, which was drafted by Paul Harrington, the director of the Center for Labor Markets and Policy at the Goodwin College of Professional Studies in Philadelphia, PA, found that since the recession began older workers have steadily been replacing their younger counterparts.
Not surprisingly, the report identified teens and young adults as some of the individuals most vulnerable to economic recessions since firms slow their hiring activities in tough economic times and internal staff reductions are often made on the basis of seniority. Between 2007 and 2009 alone, employment levels among teens and young adults fell a whopping 17 percent.
But the youngest members of the workforce aren’t the only ones suffering; employment has also fallen drastically among “prime age” workers—those between 25 and 54. From 2007 to 2009, employment in this cohort dropped 11 percent. Harrington pointed out that compared to prior economic downturns, these losses are unusually large and they attest to the overall severity of the recession.
Amidst all this decline, however, employment rates are actually rising for those 55 and older—a full 6 percent over the course of the same two-year period. This isn’t to say seniors are benefiting from the recession, quite the opposite in fact. Most of the increase in senior employment can be attributed to previously retired workers who are forced to re-enter the job market as a matter of economic necessity.
Taken as a whole, the report reveals an unfortunate economic situation, one in which the youth can’t find a job and the elderly can’t leave one.
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