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October 2, 2016 by Mark Whittaker

Debate Demonstrates Obsolete Thinking About Jobs

Copyright: ploutarxina / 123RF Stock Photo
Copyright: ploutarxina / 123RF Stock Photo
After watching Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump debate on Monday, it occurred to me that the candidates were stuck in a time warp. Their conversation about jobs and the economy focused on 20th century issues, and not on what’s happening in the 21st century.

In broad, simplest terms, the candidates — and by extension, the rest of us — are not accounting for the hurricane-force transition from an industrial economy to an information economy. In fact, this transition is well underway and is not just something that’s years in the future. Lost industrial and manufacturing jobs are gone. G-O-N-E. They are not coming back.

Baby Boomers like me — and maybe you, too — have been caught in the middle of this transition. We started our careers at what seemed to be the height of the industrial age. If we wanted them, our fathers’ jobs were there for us. If we didn’t, there were plenty of other companies and occupations in which to build long careers that would inevitably lead to nice pensions and happy retirements.

But even early in our careers, we started to see that reality (dream?) crumble. It started in the steel industry in the late ‘70s, and without rehashing the economic history, the denouement was the Great Recession in 2008. The loss of manufacturing jobs is only part of the story. Lots of other occupations and jobs have simply disappeared. They have not been stolen away by lands of faraway cheap labor. They have been disrupted out of existence. I can speak from experience about the disappearance of newspaper jobs. A slew of middle-management jobs across all industries have been squeezed out of existence. Were you a travel agent? Buh-bye. Librarian? I’ll Google that. Bank teller? Hell, I don’t even use an ATM anymore. Equipment operator? Can you say “robot?” Postal worker? Can I give you my email address? (Oh, and my Amazon drone should be here any minute.) Printing press operator? See “newspaper jobs” above, and if you really need a hard copy of this article, just use your home printer.

Need more evidence that the transition is well underway? Let’s take a quick look at the largest publicly traded U.S. companies (according to Forbes):

Berkshire Hathaway: This is a company that makes money by owning other companies that make money (admittedly, some are manufacturers).
JPMorgan Chase: Bank, financial services.
Wells Fargo: Bank, financial services.
Apple: Maker of smartphones, computers and software.
ExxonMobil: Energy and chemicals.
Bank of America: Bank, financial services.
AT&T: Communications.
Citigroup: Bank, financial services.
Verizon: Communications.

Microsoft and Google are 11th and 12th, respectively, and if you’re wondering about car makers, Ford ranks 17th and General Motors ranks 20th.

The Information Age has arrived, and it has brought with it all sorts of changes in how we work, our relationships with employers and how we plan for second half of our lives.

I’ve got high school classmates who’ve worked their entire lives for the same company and who are either retired or expecting to retire in another couple of years. Without taking anything away from their lifetimes of hard work, some would call them the lucky ones.

But to call them “lucky” is Industrial Age thinking. Just like it’s Industrial Age thinking to bemoan the circumstances of so many others in the later stages of their careers who have found themselves downsized, working for half of what they used to make and drifting in career and financial uncertainty. It’s the same thinking that drives debates and conversations about jobs lost to cheap-labor countries, and it’s outdated.

Instead, the conversation needs to focus on teaching people — at any stage of life — to be more entrepreneurial. I don’t mean that everybody needs to learn how to start a new business every two years or how to win in the “Shark Tank.” Being entrepreneurial means learning to sell what you can do or what you can make to anyone who needs it. Being entrepreneurial means taking more responsibility for your financial well-being instead of relying on someone who may or may not decide to continue employing you from week to week.

Being entrepreneurial means that you should have a side hustle, something that generates income untethered to anything but your own time and hard work. Being entrepreneurial means taking advantage of your career circumstances — whatever they are — and making something new for yourself.

The presidential candidates are using our familiarity and comfort with the industrial economy that molded the Baby Boomer generation. We miss it. It was comfortable. I visited Ukraine in 2001, a decade after the end of the Soviet Union. At the time, Ukrainians faced a great deal of political and economic uncertainty. Despite the political oppression of the communists, people missed the “Soviet Times.” Under Soviet rule, they had jobs. They had places to live. They had enough food. In 21st century America, many of us feel the same way about the industrial economy.

But the Industrial Age is gone, and all of the institutions that supported it are either broken or have gone, too. Get out of the time warp. Shed your Industrial Age thinking and look ahead. That’s my plan. I figure I’m experienced enough to be aware of some of the obstacles I fact and still young enough get up after I trip on the ones I don’t see.

Filed Under: Mark's Blog

January 24, 2015 by Mark Whittaker

Can Boomers Thrive in a New Age Economy?

Boomers as entrepreneursThe recession that started in 2008 knocked tens of thousands older Americans out of their jobs, and seven years later that displacement continues to ripple through the Baby Boomer generation.

The average length of unemployment for workers over 55 continued to lengthen in 2014, stretching to 54.3 weeks in December, according to the AARP Public Policy Institute. That’s up from 45.8 weeks in December 2013. Meanwhile, the average length of unemployment for those under 55 dropped to 28.2 weeks in December, down from 35.2 weeks a year earlier.

The same report says there were 230,000 older “discouraged” workers in December. In 2007, that number was just 53,000.

There are a number of forces working to keep older Baby Boomers from finishing the careers they expected to have when they began working. The recession squeezed middle management out of many industries, and those jobs aren’t likely to return. Entire industries have been disrupted, even disabled, by technology, and some jobs simply don’t exist anymore. Undeniably, age discrimination plays a role.

There are other changes afoot that affect everyone, not just Baby Boomers. Author Seth Godin, in his “The Icarus Deception,” writes about the end of the industrial age and the failure of the social and education institutions of that age to prepare us for a new economy. The industrial age rules — study hard, memorize what you’re taught, pass your tests, work hard, and you’ll be successful — don’t necessarily work. Ask any displaced Baby Boomer. The new “connection economy” allows everyone to bring their own individual art to the world, Godin suggests.

All of this suggests displaced Boomers should abandon any desire to fit back into a crumbling, industrial-age workplace and adopt an entrepreneurial approach to their remaining working years. In this, there is hope.

It turns out that entrepreneurship in modern America is not just a game for the young in Silicon Valley. From Time.com in March 2013: “Still, start-ups in some industries, such as biotech and business software, gain an edge from the experience that comes with a founder’s age. According to research by Vivek Wadhwa, an academic and tech entrepreneur, and the Kauffman Foundation, the average age of successful start-up founders in these and other high-growth industries was 40. And high-growth start-ups are almost twice as likely to be launched by people over 55 as by people 20 to 34.”

Entrepreneur.com, citing the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity, reported that in 2012, nearly 25 percent of new businesses were started by people 55 and older. In 1996, it was 14 percent.

Many Boomers are eager to start their own businesses. In 2011, The MetLife Foundation said that 25 percent of Baby Boomers surveyed hoped to start a business or nonprofit within five to 10 years.

So, for Baby Boomers who have been disenfranchised from the workplaces they were trained to serve, there is reason for optimism. With a little Googling, it’s easy to find examples of successful, older entrepreneurs, including Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald’s, and Harland Sanders, who founded Kentucky Fried Chicken with his first Social Security check. Remember, there’s no rule that says an entrepreneur has to start a multi-million-dollar company. For older Americans, making a living and creating a few new jobs might be enough.

The end of the industrial age offers another form of hope for older workers, according to Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, who, at this writing, is about to turn 75. According to a June 2013 article on Entrepreneur.com, Slim told CNBC.com, “When you have an industrial economy like in the past where people … do a lot of physical work and people live less years, it’s OK to retire at 65,” Slim told CNBC. “When you have a society of knowledge and experience and information, at this age is where you are at your best. It’s [foolish] to retire at this age. And you don’t have the physical work, and you have the intellectual work and you are in your best in your 60s.”

Baby Boomers have lots of work experience to apply to an entrepreneurial venture. What other resources will they need? Some training about how to start a business. Some cash. And encouragement and courage to break the industrial-age mold that formed them.

Filed Under: Mark's Blog, Slider

June 2, 2012 by Mark Whittaker

Sign up now and get ‘Changing Careers After 50: 12 Key Lessons’

Changing Careers After 50: 12 Key LessonsAre you thinking about changing careers even though you’re older than 50? You’re not alone. Plenty of Baby Boomers, including me, have shifted gears to find new, meaningful work. “Changing Careers After 50: 12 Keys Lessons” provides some tips for over-50 career-changers. Sign up for SunsetChasing.com updates, and I’ll send you a free copy.

Here’s the sign-up form, and I promise I won’t share your e-mail address or any other information you might provide with anyone or any other business.

Filed Under: Promotions, Slider

May 6, 2012 by Mark Whittaker

Career-changer aims to help boomers in ‘third stage’

Stuart Himmelfarb
Stuart Himmelfarb
Stuart Himmelfarb has been studying the baby boomer generation, and what he’s learning is the foundation of his new career — running an organization to engage Jewish boomers with their cultural and religious communities.

“I consider myself an extremely fortunate guy because I’m able to embark on this initiative, which not only connects me to the Jewish community, but also fires up my entrepreneurial zeal. We see an incredible opportunity to understand what boomers are doing, thinking feeling at this stage of their lives,” the 60-year-old New York City resident said.

The new organization, called B3/The Jewish Boomer Platform, was born from research conducted by Stuart’s business partner, David Elcott, the Taub Professor of Public Service at New York University’s Wagner School. The research indicated that while the organized Jewish community has many initiatives for young people and for the geriatric community, there was nothing focused on baby boomers. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Profiles, Slider

April 16, 2012 by Mark Whittaker

Top tweets about Boomers, career changes

What’s the Twitterverse saying about late career changes and Baby Boomers? Here are the best, relevant tweets from last week from the #babyboomers, #boomers and #careerchange hashtags.

1. I AM NOT RETIRING How #BabyBoomers are Picking a Retirement Age http://bit.ly/HExv3Z #boomers. From Linda Bernstein, @wordwhacker

2. How the Baby #Boomers are Reinventing Old Age. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-alexandre-kalache/how-the-baby-boomers-are-_b_1403431.html. ReverseMortgage @learnreverses

3. John Norris: #Boomers will have to take risks to boost economy http://ow.ly/a9FR1 via @MGMAdvertiser. From Varsity, @varsitybranding [Read more…]

Filed Under: Top Tweets

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Recent Articles

  • Debate Demonstrates Obsolete Thinking About Jobs
  • Can Boomers Thrive in a New Age Economy?
  • Sign up now and get ‘Changing Careers After 50: 12 Key Lessons’
  • Career-changer aims to help boomers in ‘third stage’
  • Top tweets about Boomers, career changes

Sunset-Chaser Profiles

Stuart Himmelfarb

Stuart Himmelfarb has been studying the baby boomer generation, and what he's learning is the foundation of his new career -- running an organization to engage Jewish boomers with their cultural and religious communities. "I consider myself an … Read the Article

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