The lead in paragraph was interesting, but I wonder if you looked deeper into the numbers you would see some other trend. If you take into account the seniority, responsibility, or salary of the positions sought does the time projects hold. Someone who is less than 55 years old can find a job in 18.9 weeks compared to 25.8 weeks for someone who is 55 and older. Intuitively one would think that an older and perhaps more experienced person would be competing for senior organizational roles which should be fewer in number than entry level or junior roles. I have worked for companies which are top heavy, but that doesn't last too long if they have a sensible business model and revenue / profit targets. Too many managers can kill a bottom line. Also if you take the absolute numbers of job seekers in to account the trend may be altered. There should be many 55 and older individuals than any lower subsequent cluster of individuals because of the baby boom that happened after WWII. I do understand that the two absolute pool numbers are actually in one universal job market seeking jobs, but in reality someone in the older crowd should cluster to jobs that are different than a younger crowd. Grand pa by and large may not have a strong affinity to the electronics game tester job opening.

Just my 2 cents

I gave up looking for a job. In rural areas like the one where I moved, there ARE NO JOBS for IT people. If you have a lot of skills/experience, I am told once employers see that sort of thing on your resume, they say "If we hired him, in 3 weeks he would be gone to a job that pays more than we can afford. So why even bother interviewing him." They can't seem to understand I am not interested in working my way up the ladder anymore. I would just like to find someplace interesting & challenging to work, where I can put some of my skills to use, and maybe learn some new stuff. $10/hour as a WalMart greeter does not interest me.

Hey Depressed!

Don't give up on the search because there are no local jobs. There are many opportunities for folks that telecommute.

Hey - ex-telecommuter.

Actually I side with depressed. I notice you want him/her to telecommute and you are an Ex Telecommuter. I'm guessing you didn't like some part of that scene. I'm perfectly willing to do SOME telecommuting but I prefer to have people around to bounce ideas off of and remind me of things I forgot I knew etc. I'm not a real people person or I would be a manager somewhere. or maybe do something really lucrative like selling insurance and finacial products ...

I'm looking to put most of 30 years of computing industry experience to work as a Worker. I learned a while back that I'm NOT a manager. I get frustrated too easily with normal people. But I am a good hard worker. I just need to come into the office & be part of the group. That said - I like having the ability to stay home and babysit the grandkids occcasionally & put in 5 - 7 hrs instead of my normal 11. and No - Welcome to Wal-Mart is not part of the plan.

I am over 55 and have been looking for work for 16 months. I have had five phone interviews and one face to face. All interviewers were at least 15 years my junior, maybe more. They found me amusing, at best. My BI eperience, coupled with small applications development, left them all cold. From the qeustions that I was asked I definitely got the impression that the interviewers were mostly clueless to their own needs, looking, apparently, for a young, fresh face who could trade laughs and barbs with them about the latest American Idol show, or maybe Lindsay Lohan's email address. All I can say is they have the jobs, we have the music. And Bird lives.

I have been out of works going on 20 months with a 3 month stint of work that has now ended. I'm 46 and have spent valuable hours at sites like Career.com, Dice, Ladders etc putting together profiles, pushing out resumes and filling out pages upon pages upon pages of applications answering "specific" questions that either weed me out or get me a mass of auto-responses from recruiters who don't follow up on my email or phone call to them. I've managed to get 3 telephone interviews w/perspective employers in all those months but was not offered the jobs. I'm beginning to believe the "recruitment" industry is a big joke and the jokes on us. If you have any ideas I'm all ears. I've worked both in Aerospace as a A&P licensed mechanic as well as in the IT industry as a senior level Technical Support specialist. The more time I spend out of work the bigger the gap. As for Telecommuting, if you know of any legit resources on that let me know.