Set Back by Recession, and Shut Out of Rebound
By MICHAEL WINERIP
Published: August 26, 2013 577 Comments
RIDGEWOOD, N.J. — In September 2012, it appeared that the world was John Fugazzie’s frozen oyster. He was in charge of dairy and frozen foods for the A.&P. supermarket chain, making $125,000 a year.
e was also a guest that month at a White House forum on joblessness, in recognition of his work creating Neighbors-helping-Neighbors U.S.A., a volunteer networking organization with 28 chapters in New Jersey serving 1,200 unemployed, mainly white-collar, baby boomers. “John has one of the best volunteer organizations out there,” said Ben Seigel, a deputy director at the Labor Department. “He’s tireless and always upbeat.”
Lately Mr. Fugazzie has been feeling a little weary and beat down. One morning last October, just before his 57th birthday, he was laid off and, carrying a box of belongings from his office, driven home in a car service hired by the company. In the 10 months since, he has applied for more than 400 positions and had 10 interviews, but still has no job.
He and his family are living in his 88-year-old mother’s home, and last month he awoke at 4:30 a.m., sweating profusely, in the midst of a heart attack.
As happens to many Americans, when he lost his job, he lost his health insurance. He now owes $171,569.44 for the six nights he spent at the hospital.
And so on the evening of Aug. 15, at a meeting of the job club he himself started here two years ago, he told the others he was just like them. “I need a job,” he said. “I need to make money now.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/booming/for-laid-off-older-workers-age-bias-is-pervasive.html?_r=0
Hopefully, being written up in the NY Times helps Mr Fugazzie out. I’d read something about A&Ps business troubles last year; I guess it finally caught up with him.
I’m in my mid forties. I save like a fiend, and carry zero debt. If I find myself out in the cold past 55, I know the odds are, I’m staying there. Age discrimination is very real: people think you’ll be too jaded, confrontational or lack the enthusiasm required for lower and middle management jobs, and top jobs are not usually handed to the unemployed.
A good strategy: minimize debt. Stay as healthy as possible. If you still have insurance, use it! Get checked up, eat well, watch your weight etc etc. And consider a plan B: what would you do if you were shut out of the industry you’ve learned for the last 30 years? Do you have transferrable skills? Could you learn something new? Teach? Pick up a trade? If you have the time, learn one now. Learn a language: Manderin, German, Japanese, Portugese, Russian (just listing the languages spoken in the worlds larger economies – full disclosure I know very little of any these but am learning Manderin).
Sorry to preach. Just my two cents. Good luck.