Why does this resonate with me, even though I’m retired?
‘Self-employment provides a way for older workers to use their skills and experience in a flexible and autonomous way whilst also generating income and maintaining their sense of purpose.
‘Technological advancements means setting up a business in your 50s or 60s has never been easier and armed with rich life experience and a valuable business network behind them, the appeal of building something of their own or pursuing a passion project can be a powerful draw.
‘There is a more sinister side to the rise in self-employment amongst this age group too.
‘Shut out of the mainstream workforce due to a lack of flexible working opportunities and rampant age discrimination in the workplace means many older workers have no choice but to set up on their own.
‘Stuck between a rock and a hard place with a rising cost of living and the state pension age soon to be extended to 67, self-employment can feel like the only option for many who have been denied access to traditional employment.’
I’ll be happy to be proved wrong, but the way older workers have been treated by corporations since the 1980s…
In my field (conventions and corporate meetings) they’re so short of useful technicians that they’ll keep using people until they literally refuse to work (or die).
I’m in my mid-60s, and I’m starting the shift to the physically-easier jobs.
Forget about finding an engineering job if you’re over fifty.
When you’re over 50 you’re “outdated” and “too set in your ways”, so getting hired is getting harder and harder.
Worse, that age is getting lower and lower. In IT where I work the effect is visible by reluctance to hire people over 40, even over 35 in places.
Companies still look for the 25 year old PhD with 10 years’ work experience, sadly.
Getting laid off at 58 was the best thing that happened to me. I had been the leader of our industry specific software User Group for the region. I continued in that role but now I was an independent Consutant with 8 instant built-in clients and making 3 times what I was making previously. Building on that knowledge, becoming a Certified MS SQL developer and certified SAP Crystal Developer (thanks to my old employer) allowed me to branch out to other industries. Did that for another 16 years untill covid shut everything down.
Build a solid Contact list and Network and keep learning as much as you can about all the new stuff
50,000-word rant just deleted. Nobody wants to hear a cranky Old Fart sounding off about what’s wrong with the world, especially on a Monday. But I will say that this is the kind of thing that causes us to day drink.
Fired at age 66 for not taking the jab.
I spent a year looking for work, even as a consultant, but got nowhere. So I’m retired now, earlier than I wished. No one wants a late 60’s techie, even if I am an expert in my field. (Epic software, medical billing, SQL server databases, Medical records).
I really wanted a couple more years of saving to recover from the damage done to my retirement fund by the divorce, but c’est la vie.
I was on the air in radio for a good long while. Towards the end of that career, I started doing free-lance voiceover work – audio books, radio & tv commercials, corporate video narration, etc. It took a while, but it’s finally to a point where it’s all I do (from home), and I’ve never been happier. I’ll be 60 this fall, and I can thank current tech taking what began as a rocky road & turning it into the autobahn. The downside is I’m no longer able to piss & moan about the boss – regardless of how much off an asswipe he is.
I thought I was retired until I bought a commercial bakery and kitchen out of bankruptcy (I was 63) a couple of years ago. I worked my ass off to get them back to profitability during COVID, sold the bakery last September and the commercial kitchen last month. I’m not itching to get back to a 14-hour a day job, but there’s no way I can sit around the house all day long either. Here in NOVA, we’re thick with refugees, and there’s nowhere near enough ESL instructors so I was able to sign up to teach English to Afghani kids, just because I’m reasonably fluent in Farsi/Dari and my wife natively speaks Farsi/Urdu. It is nice to be around kids who are quiet, respectful, and eager to learn. I started out with one student for two hours a week and now have 6 students for a couple of hours, 3 nights a week and all day on Saturday. I don’t have any grandkids and likely never will, so this is like instantly getting 6 grandkids who love coming to “Baba Joon’s” house. I can easily see doing this for as long as I’m able.
In 1986 at age 31 I retired from the workforce and started my own architecture and engineering business and never worked a single minute since.
Why?
Because I seriously enjoy my work and do so almost every single day and have not had a traditional “vacation” during that period.
Every day is a vacation.
That old saying is true, “Find a vocation you love and you’ll never work a single day.”
There’s also rampant sexism at work. At least there used to be. No one blinks an eye at women taking a period off work but I (a man) was asked to prove I hadn’t been in prison.