New Job Ideas for People 45 and Older
Weatherization, Food Safety, Preventive Health Care Top the List
Oct 7, 2009
What kinds of jobs hold promise for midlife workers and baby boomers who want paid work yet also wish to exercise a generous, philanthropic urge to help make the world a better place? Where will there be job creation?
Those who want a steady paycheck that also helps the environment and contributes to the good health of the American public might check out three employment frontiers of the “new economy." These are preventive health care, food safety and retrofitting homes for increased energy efficiency.
Weatherization, Preventive Health Care, Food Safety
In each of these sectors, the federal government seeks to expand access to basic services, protect vulnerable populations, and reduce risk, whether from dependence on foreign oil or bacterial contamination of the food supply.
Beyond providing “just a job,” employment in one of these sectors also boasts that extra bell-and-whistle that advertisers call a unique value proposition: These workers perform a valuable, necessary, sometimes life-saving service for other Americans.
The weatherization sector will generate jobs in government, the non profit sector, and small businesses.
Community health services are likely to be reimbursed by state and federal governments, supplemented by a wide swath of non-profit organizations; both will generate demand in the private sector (for communications, material, and research).
Food safety inspection jobs currently exist in both the government (at all levels) and private sectors.
Of course, health care access, enhanced food safety and energy efficiency are all quite different. However, they share common roots in the new administration’s vision of an America positioned for the 21st century. Each of these three employment frontiers is the focus of broad new federal initiatives, reflected in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, designed to jump start the US economy and drive it in a new direction.
2010: A Time for Career Changing
The notion of a life-time career is so 20th-century that it seems as old as black-and-white television.
For decades, workers at all levels of the educational and pay scale have had to redefine work goals, reposition resumes, and remake careers. What does one need to be nimble enough to make those kind of career changes later in life?
As recently as 2007, baby boomers were, reportedly, in an introspective state of mind. Many pundits were debating the question of what the older boomers might do with the next twenty or thirty years of life. Organizations as varied as AARP and Civic Ventures were positioned to help a new generation of boomers fuel social service organization, non-profit boards of directors, and social entrepreneurship.
Things have shifted away from the question of "what would make me happy?" and toward pocketbook issues and financial security since the economic downturn of 2008. Given financial setbacks, a housing crisis and an achingly slow economic recovery that has produced high unemployment, boomers are now looking to identify, and compete for, job opportunities of the future.
Three important sector, namely energy efficiency of homes through weatherization, ensuring a safe food supply, and providing preventive health care services, are poised for job creation in the future. To get into these three fields, baby boomers seeking to retool careers, and who want to "give back" while earning a paycheck, may need to rethink skill sets and even retrain.
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