employment
 

how many RC Modlers are unemployed ? unfortunatly i'm one , i got laid off last may , been a year , no one will
hire me a 59 year old ex welder and fabricator for 28 years . its tough out there , i did pick up a partime job
starting 6/22 , but its not much green , if you know what i mean.


tally ho

WR,
It happened to me and at least two other guys in my club, all in our 50's. They both had wives with decent jobs, and my wife went back to substitute teaching. Sorry for the disenchantment this may cause, but none of us ever got back to a "real" job. For the first six months it was: "you've been making too much money so we can't talk to you." Then it was: "You've been out of work too long so we can't talk to you." Good friends in the hobby sure helped maintain my sanity. I work part time for one of my clubmates. Keeps a few brain cells active.
Chuck

I knew a few in my club who lost their jobs; the nice thing was one club member gave them some part time work until they got back to their professions. WhiteRook, at least you have some skills that dont need a large support structure. A truck with an electric welder, A/O torch and some tools, and you are in business. Might not be the same but you would be the boss.

Sadly, this is the "new America"! WhiteRook's story is all too common. The old "work for a company for 30 years, retire and get the gold watch" is a fairy tale. 10+ years ago when I was just shy of 62 I got the axe and it was the same deal, no one will hire you and yes I was also told "we can't afford you" without even finding out what my skills were or my pay expectations were. I hadn't planed to retire till I was around 70 or so but with no one willing to even talk employment with me I went for early SS as soon as I hit 62. That 2 or 3 months off work was longer than I had ever been off work TOTAL time in my entire 44 year work life. I took my SS check, a very small pension, and a not to bad 401K and made it work. I supplemented it with a part time low pay job a local storage facility and have made the adjustment work. Less then a year after my job loss my wife's company gets sold and closed. Same deal, no viable employment. She worked with me at the low pay storage place for a while. By then we had a paid off house, no car payments or other debt and told the storage company "see ya"! She went for her SS at 62 along with another small pension and her 401K, and all together we are doing fine. We even bought a new car, the only payment we currently have. Not living high off the hog, but not starving either. A little income here and a little income there, live within your means and a good 401K as back up saved us. Not everyone is able to pull it off, we have friends that are a little younger than we and are in trouble. I have no magic answer, don't think there is one.

Stories like this truly scare me. I'm only 39, so I still have some time to get ready. My wife makes pretty good money at the hospital where she works, and I'm changing careers to be a teacher. We have watched people enter their 60's with tons of debt and not be able to retire. My parents were one of those families with my dad driving a garbage truck until he got sick at 68 and my mom only just now retiring at 71. But at least they had choices. Some, like the OP, don't even have the option to keep working with a decent wage. My wife and I are on track to be completely debt free when I'm 42, paying cash for our cars and not having a house payment. Unless a disaster hits, we'll manage that and be able to get our daughter started in life without any debt and still retire at a reasonable age if we want to. That does mean the giant scale Spitfire and IMAC planes I want will have to wait, but that's ok.

I had to leave my old job when my wife took ill (an American company... they weren't very understanding sorry! :p). Anyway, by the time she recovered my dad had a stroke and I needed to spend time with him. Then.. to top it all.. I had a heart attack at the grand old age of 43 from an undiagnosed condition that basically floored me for 18 months.

I'm fine now but try telling an employer that... its against the law here to discriminate on the grounds of age/health but it happens, it just does and everyone knows it. I was fortunate enough to have IT skills that made me at least a little useful and I went to work for a local charity here to help out. That was a 3 month contract and I'm still there 10 months later.

When it does come to an end I want to go and work for myself.. life's too short! Someone said "if you don't follow your dreams you'll end up working for someone who is!"

all employers put older workers on the bottom of the hire pile , thats why alot of them
dont call you back when you apply , because their afraid of a law suite , they also wont hire anyone thats laid off, because
thats what THEY ALL DO when they dont like a worker , it not as messy as a firing , even if he does his job, but didnt play enough politics. basically they want to bury you when your
60 . it depends on what state your in as far as benefits , i'm in maine and to be blount , 2 thirds of the state is poor
and the benifits suck . and per capita they have some of the highest taxes in the country.

WhiteRook, I know it is not likely that a 59 year old wants to relocate to a different part of the country (or world for that matter) but if you can find work in your line elsewhere it is something to think about. Even if the move is only long enough to finish out your work career until you are ready to retire, then return to live where you prefer in retirement. People have been relocating for available work since the the beginning of time, it's not new and doesn't have to be permanent. A long distance move is never simple, a lot of factors have to be weighed and evaluated but realistically you have less than 10 good working years left to prepare for retirement. With no viable work in the last year in your area, I would think about changing "your area". Just a thought, I know it ain't easy out there today but you got to do something, think out of the box to change the situation. Good luck.

work
 

Don't get me wrong but what does this have to do with RC? No ,I don't work.

I was laid off as a machinist at 50. Was kind of tired from standing all day 10 hours. I just never looked for another job, and moved to a more reasonably priced area that is a bit warmer. I fly a lot more than I ever did before, and seem much busier now. I have been fixing houses, selling, renting, whatever. Not really a job for sure, but sometimes makes money. Have to buy older cars, and lawn mowers etc, but I always did anyway. The wife has a very small pension. She is older than me, my pension is pretty small too. I have to wait a few more years for it. I was looking at houses in "The Villages" area. Nice there. North Port too. I think the young guys are having a tougher time than us older guys. My kid is still looking for a real job at 34. No experience, too much school, overeducated for any job around here.... I could go on, but have to move some stuff to the new house.

So many young people in the last 25 years (myself included) were told that college, especially master's work, would mean that jobs would be waiting for them. The one element missing from that is having a plan. If you get a degree in computer programming and want to live in an area where there are no software companies, it won't matter if you graduated sigma cum laude. Graduation is also not the time to start the job hunt. Smart college students intern in the their chosen field so they can at least make some connections and learn some practical skills, not to mention building that all important resume'.

Funny that you mention computer programming. The son went for a computer engineer/technologist, then RIM which was local, decided to lay off 5,000 people. Then he had no experience, and 5,000 people did, in the same city. Here there is mostly greenhouses that hire imports, no room for locals. Can't speak Spanish, and might want overtime after 50 hours... Should have known that it was a bad choice when the internship could not even get a placement for him to work for free even. Same thing happened before when he went to college for three years in Graphic Design. Turns out everyone just does their own, and $30,000 was wasted. Sorry I am whining, and it doesn't relate to models.

I tell kids who will listen (which isn't very many) that the first step in any career is to meet at least a couple of people who do it and ask them what it takes. Offer to buy lunch for an hour or two of their time, then learn as much as you can from them. Hopefully that meeting turns into a future line of communication where the youngster can ask about college choices, good companies to work for, get a letter of recommendation, etc. But at minimum, those 1 or 2 people will tell them what the job is really like, what it really requires, and how the job market is. Way too many young people think that earning a degree is the same thing as being qualified to do a job when it's not, and a lot more really have no idea what the job actually entails or how to do it.

Case in point: I felt a call to ministry as a teenager, but I had no idea how to learn the skills. I went to a Christian college in the pastor's degree program and did ok. During that time, I didn't network with a single ministry professional, didn't gain any practical skills, and didn't learn how to be on church staff and handle people etc. The result was I was unemployable. I would up with a couple of part time jobs in small churches that forced me to spend most of my time working a second/first job to pay the bills. I learned about networking way too late and wasn't able to make a career out of church work due to lacking the practical skills that they can't teach in the classroom. I was good at taking tests, but I didn't have the application. So now here I am at 39 years old changing careers to education. It's not a good place to be in, but at least my wife and I were smart enough not to have a lot of debt to worry about.

My wife on the other hand, went into nursing. The job market is great there, and her mom and stepmom were both nurses so she had some connections. She chose the best school in the area, and she focused on learning from as many people as she could. She a director now and doing great at it.

funny you say 50 , i was 53 in 2009 and got laid off , then recently in 2014 it happened again.
now , i have to take seasonal work , because , the job situation is terrible. enough crying .
i just gotta do what i have to , may consider moving to pittsburgh P A area , because i have some familly in washington D C.
just a drive down 270 , about 250 miles.

If I could give any young person any advise,pick a skill or business where you own it.You may not become a millionaire,but at least you have control of your economic future.I'm a toolmaker,self employed,no employees,I could get a job at the big three,No way!jeffo

I found it easier to work for someone else as a machinist. I tried a few jobs on the mill and lathe at home, and found it hard to collect money from people who complained about" $30 an hour. Boy I wish I could make that" i still have the machines though, in case I need some work, but still would rather work for a real company.

Being a pilot is even harder.. Especially with the new FAA regs that piled in last august. Everyone is hiring, just most of those arent paying realistic wages and those that do are only posting the job for Legal reasons, the vast majority of the time they already know who is getting the job.

Aspeed,I got in a debate with a client once,he told me that he only pays 28.00 per hour.I told him how can you pay the Ford dealer 118.00 per hour to a guy who just swaps old parts with new parts,when I have a couple hundred thousand dollars in machinery, tools,and building.Needless to say no work from that guy.jeffo

i have head that the small airline commuter pilots make very little , arround 15,000 a year, is this true?

I was laid off last year at age 58. The company closed the local plant and tried to move everyone to Denver. My wife and I were too attached to this area to move. Fortunately, I was able to find another job without much difficulty. Networking and personal connections are the way to find employment. Sending out resumes and answering want ads are a waste of time. At least that was my experience.

There is one way that I have seen to be able to get a job in this situation - go temporary and be ready to relocate. Once you have a temporary job you may be able to land a permanent one. There is a lot of work in the oil fields in Oklahoma - a welder should do ok. And cost of living (i.e. temporary housing) is very low.

This gentlemen is the "new normal" that our media has been promoting. Once you reach the age of fifty you become a liability and not an asset.

Been awful fortunate here, worked a plumbing, industrial, HVAC supply house for 28 years - got fired (nothing had to say any Our Fathers' or Hail Marys' for - I say them anyway). At 53 any work was scarce for couple of months, but then went into construction as a helper. Have worked for a few different companies the last 12 years - never out of work more than 2-3 days - seems like I'll make it for a few more 'til am out of debt. Used to think I was fairly smart - LOL ! !

Plumbing has been good to me . . . they say what smells like ____ to most, smells like $$ to a plumber. Try not to experience that much thou, as most of my work been new industrial \ commercial - just a little from remodeling in hospitals.

Good luck to all, am sure looking forward to "management" change in the next couple of years.

T-man49 in Al

it depends on the airline, but $15-28,000 a year is about the current rate for the first year regional airline pilot. Second year is around $34-36k as an FO. A first year captain (which may take 1-5 years to get to) makes around $56k.
For guys like myself who have a young family living on one income, its physically not possible to lose 60% of our income for 5 years just to get back to what im making a year now with a smaller company. Those companies willing to pay reasonable wages for the position they are looking to fill are typically overlwelhmed by everyone. And then if you dont have many contacts within the industry, it makes it even more difficult.

Right now, if you lived in the Southeast Wisconsin area ( Milwaukee, Racine , Kenosha) wilth the proper certifications and 5 years experience, you could write your own ticket. There is such a shortage the Tech schools have 2 shifts of classes going. Students have jobs before training ends. Starting 45k with benefits. I talk to a guy ( master welder) your age several mos back that work for a company for 30 years, got an offer to 120k 5 week vac and benefits.
Good Luck on finding a job!