There Goes Retirement

By Kelly Greene, The Wall Street Journal 

February 14, 2009

The advice in recent months -- from financial planners, economists and educators -- has been unvarying: Retirees whose nest eggs have cracked wide open should go out and find a job. 

Easier said than done. 

Across the country, retirees who never imagined themselves returning to the workplace are polishing résumés and knocking on employers' doors. The problem: Most are running smack into the worst job market in almost three decades. Nearly 5% of workers age 55 and older were unemployed in December, a 58% jump from a year earlier and the highest percentage since 1983, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

Of course, the idea of "working in retirement" isn't new. In the past decade, many older Americans have started businesses or sought out part-time employment -- sometimes to help with household budgets, but frequently to follow long-deferred dreams. Today, though, with retirement savings in shambles and the economy in turmoil, job searches have taken on a new sense of urgency -- and, in some cases, desperation. 

"That's all people talk about...[that] they have to go back to work," says Dan Sweeney, 62 years old, a former court officer who lives in the Villages, a large retirement community in central Florida . Mr. Sweeney has been working part time as a ranger at a local golf course, where he drives around in a cart making sure the pace of play is what it should be, handing out water and generally helping golfers. Last month, he started doing direct-marketing work at home, too, but he's also looking for a job with better pay. 

Meanwhile, a neighbor -- who had invested his nest egg with Bernard L. Madoff, the New York financier accused of running a giant Ponzi scheme -- is trying to land work similar to Mr. Sweeney's. "He lost his life savings, and he was applying for [a] little golf-course job," Mr. Sweeney says. 

Despite sizable hurdles, some retirees are finding work. How did they land those jobs, the first that some had applied for in several decades? What are the best and worst parts of their newfound employment? We spoke with dozens of older adults who had retired -- but who returned to work during the past year as the recession deepened.

 Here are several of their stories: 

Getting Over 'the Sulk' 

Terry McNally, 65, was a manufacturers' representative in the stainless-steel industry in Northville , Mich. , until three years ago, then worked as a consultant to supplement his savings. That work, however, dried up last August. With his household expenses rising and the value of his investments falling, "I decided I needed to go back to work," Mr. McNally says. 

Terry McNally  

It didn't happen instantly. "I spent a couple months sulking," he says. "My aspiration was to work from home, doing marketing research or sales." Instead, he found himself entangled in "a lot of schemes." Some Web sites, he explains, purport to pay people to participate in focus groups or surveys. Mr. McNally signed up for nearly 30 sites but never was paid. Another work-from-home job appeared more promising: scheduling appointments for salespeople to meet with prospects. But the demands were "overwhelming," Mr. McNally recalls. "You had to set five to six appointments a day, six days a week." 

At the suggestion of his son-in-law, Mr. McNally spent a few days working in Detroit as a movie extra, which paid $75 to $100 a day. He found casting calls on Web sites including Talent6.com and wound up in a bar scene with actor Brian Dennehy. Now, he regularly trolls online for local casting calls and recommends such work for retirees. 

Knowing that he "didn't want to go into an office again," Mr. McNally also applied for what he hoped would be reliable work at retailers including Costco Wholesale Corp., Home Depot Inc. and Target Corp. as a salesperson or cashier. But nothing materialized. Even the act of filling out job applications became dispiriting; frequently, he had to squeeze into a small kiosk or booth within the store to complete the paperwork. It "probably took me 20 minutes longer than anyone else to do," Mr. McNally says, because he found some of the keyboards too small and the spaces too confining.   

A Retiree Returns to Work 

Jan Cone was happily retired. But after her retirement funds dried up amid the market downturn, she found herself hunting for a new job. Kelly Green reports on how she made the transition back to work. 
Finally, Mr. McNally applied for an opening at a small Starbucks outlet in a shopping mall, where he was fortunate enough to be interviewed by an acquaintance. He was offered -- and accepted -- a job as a barista. Since October, he has worked between eight and 22 hours a week, taking orders, making drinks and serving customers. On Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, he and seven other employees crowded behind the counter. The work, at times, is exhausting. 
"We have to go down a long hallway off the mall to get everything," he says. "I'm lifting heavy milk jugs and going up small stepladders to get things off the shelves. I've lost five to eight pounds." 
Mr. McNally is still scanning employment Web sites with hopes of finding work he can do at home. For the time being, he says, he and his wife are making ends meet. 
"We're paying the bills, and things are going along fine," he says. "Right now, you've got to do what you've got to do. I have many, many friends going through the same thing. You have to get over the 'sulk' and get back onto something. They may not be what we want to do, but there are jobs available." 

 
Jan Cone

Scaling Back 

After retiring three years ago as a legal secretary at a large Washington , D.C. , law firm, Jan Cone filled her calendar with tennis, bridge and travel. She belongs to several service groups and attended a number of national conferences last year, spending almost $6,000 in the process. At first, her Social Security checks and 401(k) withdrawals paid those bills and others. Last year, though, her investments fell 40% in value. 

"If I wanted to live in my condo 24/7 and do nothing else, I could live on Social Security," says Ms. Cone, now 68 years old. "I'm getting almost $1,900 a month. But my lifestyle is not to be a hermit." 

In October, she reluctantly started her job search. "I kind of put it off," she says, "because I was having a lot of fun being retired and didn't want to go back to work." She first took a job as a sales clerk for Kohl's Corp., the retail chain. For $8 an hour, "I had to stand on my feet for four hours a day with one 10-minute break," Ms. Cone says. "That lasted a week and a half." 

Next, she signed up with RetirementJobs.com, an online job-search tool for people age 50-plus. Three weeks later, she found a job working Tuesdays through Fridays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. as a legal assistant in a small law firm. She currently makes $18 an hour. The office, in Fairfax County , Va. , is about 14 miles from her home. 

It's quite a switch from her former firm, where, "if I wanted something done, I picked up the phone and [the support staff] came to my desk," she says. "Here, when I come in in the morning, I start by running the backup tape [on the office computer]. My second job is to make coffee. They had to teach me how to use a postage meter." 

Cassie Chew

Jan Cone found a job that was more familiar to her. 

When asked what advice she would give others looking for work, Ms. Cone says to make it clear that you don't expect to earn the same salary you did before you retired. 

"My salary when I left in 2006 was $68,000 plus bonuses. I thought I had to put it on my résumé. [My current boss] almost didn't offer me the job because he didn't think I'd take it," Ms. Cone says. "What he didn't think about was...I'm not into business suits anymore. The woman who does his accounting said, 'Call her. The worst thing she can say is no.' " 

On balance, Ms. Cone says, she's glad she returned to the workplace. "This gives me a reason to get up every morning," she says. "I'm using my mind." Mondays are still reserved for tennis and bridge. But there's one part of retirement she misses. 

"I enjoyed pulling back the curtains in the morning, and knowing -- if it was snowing or raining -- that I could stay home." 

Staying in Touch 

When Bob Klahre, 70, retired in 2001 as a banker who managed loan portfolios, he and his wife sold their home in Princeton , N.J. , and split their time between a New York apartment near family and a vacation house in Cape Cod , Mass. Last June, after his investments, mainly in financial-services stocks, started to slip -- and eventually lost 60% of their value -- "we couldn't afford the lifestyle I worked all my life to achieve," he says. The couple gave up the rental in Manhattan and moved full time to Cape Cod , where Mr. Klahre started looking for work. 

Bob Klahre  

"As things got worse and worse last year," he says, "we made a conscious decision to downsize, and I decided maybe I should try to do some consulting or look for a job." 

One of his former employees wound up at MetLife Bank, a unit of MetLife Inc., in charge of retail operations. In August, he offered Mr. Klahre a contract assignment -- sorting out repurchase claims from investors on loans that MetLife now services after it acquired a mortgage business last year. He works in a loan-production office in Hyannis , Mass. 

"I really don't have any great advice, other than the age-old 'Stay in touch with people,' " Mr. Klahre says. "After I retired, I would invite periodically some of the key people who worked with me to have lunch, including this young man. When you retire, the biggest mistake you can make is to detach completely." 

To that end, he recommends against relocating year-round to a retirement haven. Cape Cod , in particular, is "so isolated," Mr. Klahre says. "We want to get back to the city as soon as our balance sheet allows for it." 

Mr. Klahre's job has been extended through the end of this month. "I'm up to my eyeballs in nonperforming assets," he says. Days are spent reviewing loans, working with staff members in Dallas , where the mortgage unit is based, and drafting correspondence to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and others. 

"I'm enjoying what I'm doing," Mr. Klahre says. "I'm feeling alive again. I found that I just had too much time on my hands" in retirement. "The big problem I have is my wife. She's retired. Now, I'm back at work, and she's by herself all day up here on Cape Cod . We have to [move] if I continue to work past February." 

Ron Giles  

Starting From Scratch 

Not surprisingly, many older adults looking for work try to return to what they know -- the field they worked in before retiring. But Ron Giles, 65, says the current job market rarely allows for that luxury. 

Mr. Giles retired four years ago from a Dallas company where he worked as director of corporate real estate, managing about 500 office leases. He took to the road in a recreational vehicle, eventually settling in Fort Collins , Colo. While the cost of living in Fort Collins is roughly the same as in Dallas , he says, the "cost of playing" is significantly higher. 

To pay for his $429 season pass for skiing and other goodies -- all while his investments were being pummeled -- Mr. Giles started looking for a job early last year. "I sent out literally dozens of résumés trying to make contact with people, and probably had eight or 10 interviews," he says. "Absolutely nothing came of it." 

Looking for jobs online, Mr. Giles finally found work as a part-time merchandiser, building product displays in supermarkets for Kellogg Co. He makes $11 an hour and works an average 28 hours a week. His duties, of course, are a far cry from those of his pre-retirement days. But he says that working on the front lines, as it were, suits his personality. 

"In the course of a week, I travel to eight to 10 grocery stores. I probably say hello to 100 people a day, which is very unlike my character for all of my business life. I find it delightful to have time to say, 'Good morning. How are you doing?' " 

What did he learn from his job search? "I had a feeling when I started looking that, 'Hey, I'm a smart dude. I flipped some buildings and made a lot of money for my company.' And it didn't qualify me for anything. You could have spent 30 years twirling widgets, and it doesn't matter. [Employers] want to know what you can do in relation to what they need." 

Bill Sitzmann  

For Kay Wesley (top, right), finding a job in retirement meant striking out in new directions. 

Doing Well by Doing Good 

In July 2006, Kay Wesley retired from her job of 27 years as a receptionist to care for her father in a hospice center. He died the following February. Soon after, Ms. Wesley, who lives near Omaha , Neb. , began worrying about her nest egg. 

"I started realizing I was going more and more into the hole," she recalls. "I did dip into my 401(k) a couple of times, and I thought, 'I can't do this. I hope to live a long, long time, and that's my buffer.' " 

Ms. Wesley began combing the classifieds in her local newspaper for part-time jobs -- and came across a help-wanted ad for a franchise of Home Instead Senior Care, an Omaha company that provides nonmedical caregiving services. She decided to apply. 

"I was scared," Ms. Wesley remembers. "I didn't put together a résumé, because I didn't know where to start." What she did know was that helping her father had taught her a lot about caregiving, and she discovered that she enjoyed the work. Home Instead hired her. 

Today, after one year on the job, Ms. Wesley, age 69, logs 16 to 20 hours a week at $7.25 to $8 an hour. She currently works with two clients. Each Monday and Wednesday, she spends six hours helping one woman with her laundry and shopping; the two also go out for lunch or a movie. Each Thursday, she visits a retired teacher; there, she vacuums, does laundry and cleans the kitchen after taking the teacher out to breakfast. 

"I helped her wrap all of her Christmas gifts, boxed them up and took them to the post office," Ms. Wesley says. "It was important to her that she get that done." 

The work will never make her rich, Ms. Wesley says. But she brings in between $500 and $600 a month, "just enough" to ease the strains on her budget. More important, she says, "at the end of the day, I'm making a difference in someone's life." 

         Gordon Scott  

Playing Geography 

For some job seekers, the location of the second home they enjoyed in retirement is providing some additional employment opportunities. Gordon Scott, 61, lives in Solomons, Md., and now hopes to find work as a substitute teacher in Cocoa Beach , Fla. , where he, his wife and their two sons own a condominium. 

Mr. Scott retired as a police district commander in the mid-1990s and then spent 12 years teaching elementary and high-school students before retiring a second time two years ago. Shortly after, "money got tight...because of the stock market," he says. "I'm down 40% right now." Pension checks cover the bills, for the most part, but Mr. Scott has been dipping into cash reserves. As a result, he began looking for work. 

He was hopeful about an opening at a library near his Maryland home, but didn't get the job. "I know they liked me a lot," he says. "But possibly the idea of my age and wondering how long I would stay [precluded an offer]. They never asked me that, but I just think that was it." He also considered training to be a nurse, but decided that 64 (his age when that training would be completed) was too old to start working 12-hour shifts. 

In Maryland , Mr. Scott was paid $80 a day to substitute. In Florida , he expects to make at least $93 a day -- and possibly the $121 paid to retired teachers. He doesn't want to relocate permanently, since he has four grandchildren in Maryland . "We'll probably do seven months in Florida and five months in Maryland ," he says. 

Mr. Scott, like many retirees today, says he is simply trying to make the best of a bad situation. "I just retired at the wrong moment," he says. "I thought I had a great plan, and I worked the numbers for so long. But a lot of people have it a lot worse than I do. I don't have a bad life; I just have an altered life." 

More Information on US Elder Rights Issues

Copyright © Global Action on Aging
Terms of Use  |  Privacy Policy  |  Contact Us