Take a walk or drive along any of Du Page`s many store-lined streets, and you`ll wonder where the workers are.
”Employees Needed” here. ”Help Wanted,” there. In many a fast-food chain and department store in the business districts of this county, there are signs of a shrinking and aging labor pool, largely the result of fewer young participants.
As the work force wanes-and studies show that it is countrywide-employers throughout Du Page County are starting to tap a pool of people previously forgotten in today`s high-tech, upscale job market.
Businesses are beginning to beckon seniors.
”Employers are, indeed, starting to look in places they never looked before, ” said Erwin Cohen, assistant manager of research and information for the Illinois Department of Employment Security. ”I think this is particularly true in Du Page, where there is no longer a labor surplus but a shortage.”
Retirement-age citizens, 65 and up, lost for something meaningful or productive to do; seniors in need of money to supplement their Social Security benefits; and older, first-time job seekers (namely women, older and younger than 65) who are finally able to work after years at home with the kids are the main targets of the new recruitment trend, said Connie Kobitter of the Northeastern Area Agency on Aging, which serves Du Page.
While some seniors are being offered high-paying positions, many are re-entering the market by heeding the call to all those entry-level positions just waiting to be filled.
Theresa Rhodes, 77, a biscuit-salad maker at McDonald`s in Yorktown Center in Lombard did. So did Curley B. Russell of Chicago, 70, a messenger for Harris Trust and Savings Bank in downtown Chicago.
Grace Molitor, 72, is a clerk at the Du Page County Human Services Department, where she does ”practically everything except type.”
”I`d say that recently I have noticed quite a few people around my age getting out and doing more, and for some of them that means getting a part-time job,” said Molitor, a widow who spent most of her time at her Wheaton home rearing eight children before she took the job as clerk.
”I`ve always said that older people should get out and mix with other people. It keeps your mind working,” she said.
”I like to crochet, but I don`t want to spend the rest of my life crocheting. I plan to keep working until I just can`t do it anymore.”
Rhodes and Russell were two of 88 post-retirement-age workers honored recently at the Chicago-based Operation Able`s Tenth Annual Older Worker Award Luncheon. The oldest honoree, a clerk at Park Ridge`s Main Township Senior Center, was 92.
”From what I see, many seniors are staying on their professional jobs longer, and that accounts partly for their growing numbers in the work force,” Kobitter said.
”But recently there definitely appears to be a lot of older workers who are starting back to work at a much lower level than what they were before,” she said.
According to the national Food Marketing Institute, 86.2 percent of all food retailing companies (factories, fast food restaurants and grocery stores) are actively recruiting these people as an alternative to the shrinking youth pool.
In an attempt to help with hiring difficulties, a memorandum entitled New Employee Groups Come to the Rescue was sent to area Eagle Food Store managers recently. Attached to it were articles detailing the benefits of hiring seniors. It spoke of their resourcefulness and know-how, their personabilty, dependability, dedication and eagerness to learn and apply their new skills.
”I think that more older workers have been in the work force for a while, but companies such as ours have only recently started to recognize them as the valuable resource they are,” said Keith Lovett, senior vice president of the Milan, Illinois-based Eagle food store chain in which all in-store jobs are considered entry level.
”Basically what our recruitment efforts boil down to,” Lovett said,
”is more willingness to hire older workers who come looking for work. Here recently there seem to be more of them looking.”
The Lisle Chamber of Commerce last month held a half-day seminar called
”Creative Solutions to a A Tight Labor Market” in which employers throughout the county came to swap ideas on the ”labor shortage of entry-level personnel in Du Page” and identify resources, namely seniors.
At another conference recently called ”Age Works Here,” Operation ABLE honored Marshall Field & Co., Ann Sather`s Restaurant, the office of the Secretary of State and the American Library Association for their exemplary efforts to recruit, train and retain older workers, many of whom are in entry- level positions, according to Shirley Sachs, who is the liason between Operation Able clients and nearly 35 companies interested in employing older workers.
These are companies that routinely call the organization`s job hotline in search of workers. Operation ABLE itself operates APT (Ables`s Pool of Temporaries), a well-used resource for employers seeking more experienced short-term help, Sachs said.
Other than employers` estimated numbers, however, there are few figures, if any, that specifically track the swing toward older workers taking entry-level positions.
”That`s because the trend is so new,” said Cohen. ”Just because there aren`t any numbers now doesn`t mean this isn`t happening more. I think it definitely is. It`s just in its infant stage. As we approach the year 2000, I suspect that there will very likely be more statistics to back it up.”
There are many numbers that show a slow but sure move toward an older work force as a result of the end of baby boomers entering the job market and couples having fewer or no children, a phase that started about 10 years ago, Cohen said.
”Outlook 2000: The Labor Force,” a study done by the U.S. Department of Labor, found that the number of workers age 16 to 24 dropped from 24 percent in 1976 to 19 percent in 1988 and is still falling. The study predicted that the 14,319,000 workers age 55 and older in 1976, will have increased to more than 17 million by 2000.
Cohen`s figures show that the unemployment rate for seniors in the work force statewide is only 2.8, compared to a nearly 7.0 for the statewide work force in general.
”While the older worker is less likely to be in the work force, those who are are more likely to be employed,” Cohen said. ”That means people are hiring them.”
Some analysts surmise that many of the younger people in the work force
(the prototypical entry-level workers, the grocery store clerks, shoe salesmen, waitresses and waiters) are finding other, more upscale jobs such as internships in a their chosen career field.
Cohen thinks this is particularly true in Du Page.
”This is leaving more space for the older worker to enter the market, and they do for a variety of reasons,” he said.
The U.S. Supreme Court last year significantly thwarted the Age Discrimination in Employment Act when it ruled that employers can legally deny, terminate or reduce fringe benefits for workers age 40 and older, thus shoving many older workers back into the job market.
That, coupled with the fast-spreading new early retirement plans that downsizing companies offer older workers as a golden key to the exit door, is another reason why so many seniors are looking for work in restaurants and grocery stores, Kobitter said.
Sachs agreed, pointing to the nationwide requirement that seniors earn less than $9,000 annually in order to keep their full Social Security benefits.
Seniors who want to work don`t always want to take entry-level positions, Kobitter and Sachs said. But many of them do after confronting a no-win situation: That age can be a big stumbling block to better-paying jobs and better-paying jobs are a stumbling block to Social Security benefits.
Some seniors take the entry-level jobs as a stepping stone to something better, and others take them ”for the sheer enjoyment of feeling useful, that they are still contributing to society,” Kobitter said.
”Perhaps the shrinking labor market gave employers a necessary push, but they are definitely starting to realize the wealth of resources in older workers,” she said. ”Regardless of anything else, I think that`s a really good thing.”
