“Potential new summer workforce”

“Can I help you?”
That question may soon become one of the most frequently asked work questions for Baby Boomers, many of whom recently woke up to learn that their dreams of retirement had turned into nightmares, thanks largely to twin bogeymen: the greedy and the incompetent. Specifically, unbridled greed of investment bankers and other Wall Street predators and a government so fixated on the absolute rightness of an economic philosophy based upon that greed that it left its practitioners unregulated.
So we look to retail for our personal financial salvation. Minimum wage employment, once considered suitable for students, housewives looking to bring a second income into a household, or the only work available others whose lack of technical skills or education determined them to be unable to “make it” in the white collar professions. Forget blue collar. The factories boarded up long ago and have run across the border to greener pastures… greener that is for corporate fat cats whose decisions moved them there.
Retail is now seeing a new workforce component: the cash-strapped retiree or retiree on hold who is hoping to find work either because his savings or stock portfolio has taken a trashing in recent years or…well, there’s not much of an “or” there.
According to the Urban Institute, retail now employs more people age 65 and older than any other industry.
For so many people in the “boomer” cohort, retail work is a godsend. Never mind that it’s usually part-time with few if any benefits, pays at or near minimum wage, and can be physically challenging. The work doesn’t require extensive training and there is flexibility, including a seasonal component to much of it.
The trend of putting older works behind the cash register comes at a time when news stories about retail are not very promising. They tell of shopping malls shutting down and large retail companies like Circuit City and Bed, bath, and Beyond going out of business or cutting back on help and closing stores.
But there is some hope in seasonal resort areas where there is a high demand for workers for given times of the year.
For example, in places like Cape May County during the summer.
In recent years, there’s been a controversy with the importation of “foreign labor” by many local employers who are hired in place of local kids. The employers contend that the foreign students are harder working, and more dependable than home grown youth. While the point can be debated it’s not the issue here.
With our economy in turmoil and with more and more people of all ages seeking employment, maybe our area seasonal employers could make a commitment to hold back on hiring overseas labor and give the locals a shot of those jobs.
Times have changed. Maybe American kids don’t want to work boardwalk rides, ring cashiers, or sell tee shirts, maybe their grandparents might not turn up their noses to such work.
We’ve seen a lot of strange stuff happen in that topsy turvy universe known as economics.
Maybe the future summer workforce here will include more wrinkled faces and fewer foreign ones.