Older Workers, Hurt by Recession, Seek New Jobs

In these scary economic times, older workers are putting off their retirement and hanging on to a paycheck.

In this photo released by CareerLink, employee Beverly London, 74, right, reviews job order requests...

In this photo released by CareerLink, employee Beverly London, 74, right, reviews job order requests with Jo Helman at the CareerLink office in Punxsutawney in Jefferson County, Pa., Friday March 20, 2009. London and her husband sold the family retail carpet store to their son and settled into retirement, feeling secure with thousands of dollars of stock in a bank; but the bank failed in the mortgage collapse. "I had to start putting resumes in," London said. (AP Photo/CareerLink, Larry Moses)

(AP)

Some retirees struggling to make ends meet are scanning help-wanted ads for the first time in years.

About a week ago, Jeff Rollison, a 60-year-old employee at the General Motors Corp.'s plant in Lordstown, Ohio, told the automaker he was retiring. Now, he's changed his mind.

Rollison is worried that something could happen to his retiree health benefits before he would become eligible for Medicare at age 65. Rollison is the sole breadwinner for himself and his wife. But he also is concerned about his grown children, including a son with three kids who is being laid off at a neighboring GM plant.

"If something would happen with General Motors and our health care would go away, which has happened to a lot of companies here, I would have to wait five more years to be Medicare-age," said Rollison, a member of United Auto Workers Local 1112. "There's a lot of uncharted waters out there and we have questions that can't be answered by anybody right now on how well the company will do in the short term."

An AARP survey of 1,100 people conducted in December indicated that 16 percent of people 45 and older had postponed retirement because of the economic downturn. But the percentage of people planning to delay retirement shot up to 57 percent among respondents who were working or looking for a job and had lost money in the market during the past year. Consumer confidence held steady in March, with a slight blip upward halting three months of declines as slivers of hopes about the economy buoyed consumers. But Americans are still feeling gloomy about their future given mounting layoffs and shrinking earnings.

Robert Dobkin's last day on the job as spokesman for Pepco, a utility company in the District of Columbia and Maryland, was supposed to be April 1. Now, it's delayed indefinitely.

"I felt that I was in a good position to retire until the market kept going down and down and the economy ground to a halt," said Dobkin, 67. "I just figured there's no point in retiring in this time of uncertainty until I have a better feel for where the economy is going."