I was chatting with a friend over coffee the other day, talking about my own hunt for good jobs around here, my current situation and that of friends and acquaintances I knew. After finishing my rundown, the friend, a man considerably younger than me, replied, "So here you are. You Boomers are screwing each other out of jobs."
Upon further reflection (about .000001 seconds' worth), it struck me that the friend had a point. We Baby Boomers, the demographic pig in the American python, are at it again, reshaping society profoundly as we move through it. In the 1950s, we drove our parents out to brand-new suburbs where there were good schools and room to play. In the 1960s, we clashed with our parents over weighty issues like war, peace, free love and race relations. In the 1980s, our careers launched, we cashed in as the economy boomed under a president old enough to be our grandfather. Now we are parents, and in some cases grandparents too. Our careers are entering the coasting phase - or were, before the Great Disruption derailed a lot of them.
And, as my friend pointed out, the decision-makers doing the derailing are in many cases Boomers themselves. Our cohort, the first members of which reached the Social Security retirement age this year, has also put a bunch of us not-yet-ready-to-retire Boomers out of work and into lives of unanticipated leisure. Those of us who get work now find ourselves unexpectedly underemployed in many cases, a status we share, oddly enough, with the college Class of 2011.
While our share of the total labor market may be small, our huge numbers mean that we too have become a bulge in the statistics. A five percent unemployment rate among the college educated is unprecedented in postwar American history; add the underemployed to that number and you have a large population.
Back in the 1960s, our parents could not figure out why we were so rebellious. We aren't rebellious now. Instead, we are confused, puzzled, and anxious, and our parents, if they still live, are in no position to sort things out for us. This time, we are on our own, out there on the newest frontier of Boomerhood: the prematurely idle.
By Sandy Smith
Sandy Smith is a veteran freelance writer, editor and public relations professional who lives in Philadelphia. Besides blogging for PhillyJobs.com, he has written for numerous publications and websites, would be happy to do your resume, and is himself actively seeking career opportunities on Beyond.com. Check out his LinkedIn profile and read his other posts on PhillyJobsBlog.com.
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