Bid to get more back into work

For someone who has been in the same workplace long-term, the need to refresh their CV won’t have arisen.

The recession has resulted in redundancy for people of all ages, and for older people it is particularly daunting to face the prospect of applying for new jobs and going through interviews.

People in the over-50 age bracket haven’t grown up with technology and, for many, their career hasn’t brought them into contact with computers.

A lack of computer skills puts them at a further disadvantage when seeking work. More often than not, the CVs they manage to put together are rejected without even the courtesy of a reply – or so say the research-ers involved in a multi-agency research project supporting unemployed older people.

Audrey Young, 62, was approached to participate in the project, instigated by the Bradford Older People’s Partnership, Bradford College and Bradford Older People’s Alliance, through her work in the voluntary sector.

The project is aimed at examining the barriers facing older people across Bradford district in employment and/or skills training. Focus group interviews, carried out by researchers who have undergone intensive training, will explore the views and experiences of people over 50 who are currently unemployed and looking for employment, training, retraining or upgrading skills.

Audrey speaks from experience. She worked for social services for 20 years before working in the voluntary sector. When a voluntary project she was working on came to an end, she decided to seek employment. “I felt I needed to go to work financially, but finding work when you are 60-plus was very difficult,” she says.

Audrey feels the focus is more about getting young people into work. “When you are 60 you are drawing your old-age pension, but if you don’t have a company pension it is still not enough to live on, and I am not ready to sit back in a chair and do nothing,” she says.

Through the interviews Audrey and her fellow researchers have carried out for the project – which follows Age Concern’s Not Ready For The Scrapheap campaign – many people have talked about how failing to secure a job doesn’t just affect their finances, it has an impact on their confidence, their morale and self-esteem.

“The group I met were people over 50 who had worked all their lives but they couldn’t even get an interview. The whole process was very demoralising,” says Peter Foster, 62.

During the last recession in the 1990s, Peter was made redundant from his human resources role and spent six months job-hunting. “When you keep getting rejections, or not getting a response, or you’re told you are not suitable for the position, it starts to wear, and you start to think about finances and the consequences,” he says.

Virginia Saynor, co-ordinator of activities for Bradford Council’s Older People’s Partnership, a multi-agency partnership of voluntary and public sector agencies, says that due to the current economic climate many more white-collar workers are seeking employment and are either forced to reduce their income or keep up an often-fruitless search for jobs with a salary they were used to.

“Their morale is dented and it has a knock-on effect. If they’re not managing to pay contributions, or they’ve had to lower payments on their mortgage and bills that should have been paid, it will drag on a lot longer,” she says.

Since the project was launched in June, six focus groups ranging in age from 50 to 64, have been held at community venues around Bradford. Of the 35 people interviewed, 40 per cent were unemployed due to redundancy and 46 per cent had been unemployed for more than three years.

While the interim report reveals that a large number felt that age had not been a factor in not getting interviews or jobs, the majority felt it was. Some interviewees said age and experience was a positive thing, but all were united in their resentment of not getting acknowledgements when submitting job applications.

Many felt a change in employers’ attitudes to recognise the value of mature employees would be a significant improvement.

To help them prepare their findings, the researchers are now seeking more individuals who are actively seeking employment or who may have found a job and are willing to talk about their job-hunting experience which will be carried out next month.

If you are 50-plus and would like to help with the research, call Julie Lintern on (01274) 728216, or e-mail: julie.lintern@ ageconcernbradford.org.uk.