Any one have to start over in their 50's due to job loss or?

Question

Has your current field of interest ended due to the economy or technology, and you find yourself in your 50's having to go back to school or reinvent your self? Perhaps you were making good money and now suddenly have to take that job at McDonald's. So, what are you doing? How are you getting by, This question is for the AARP group please you youngsters need not respond thank you.

Answer 1

cash-

http://loancash.co.uk/

Answer 2

My trucking career ended when I was injured in a traffic accident that caused me to develop arthritis in my back.  According to the DOT rules and regulations arthritis is a disqualifying disease, so I voluntarily gave up my CDL before it became reported.  I started over by driving a taxicab here in Amarillo.  I am making about the same amount as I was in the trucking industry, if not a bit more.  I only changed enough of myself to learn how to deal with people.  As for the other parts, I always conducted myself on the truck like I was an ambassador.   It's easy to find work out here.  You just have to be willing to put in the hours...

Answer 3

I am 57 myself and what I do have constantly evolved and changed radically every few years. I would have been out of a job and poor before I was 40 if I did not self educate myself constantly. And most of that is just having a can-do attitude.

I was trained originally on vacuum tube electronics. But I currently design state of the art electronics for the professional audio industry using technology that was not even science fiction ten years ago. And I was 50 when I got this job. And I never went back to school after graduating, when Nixon was president.

We just hired a 53 year old engineering manager and one of my technicians, hired last year is almost 60. Our marketing director is almost 80 and our CEO is 78.

If the company folded I would actually have to answer some of the emails I get from head hunters. If new technology made what I am working on obsolete I would just log on to some appropriate web sites and pick up the new technology well enough to fake it through a job interview to get me through the first couple weeks until I figured it out.

But, if you are in a position like you describe, in a one industry town, and where you worked for only the one company all your life, in essentially the same job, you are screwed. I avoided this by watching my father and figuring out how he was at a loss after retiring from the military at 53.