Aging in America |
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Boston
Tuesday, May 30, 2000
The high-tech industry is often thought of as the playground and proving ground of the young; in fact, early research suggests older workers -- those 40-years old and up -- have a hard time advancing or even establishing themselves in these fast-paced jobs. In Boston the Software Council Fellowship Program is trying to change that. Workers who've been downsized from traditional industries have used the Council to rebuild their skills for jobs in high-tech fields. The luckier ones have landed jobs where they're not only accepted despite their age, but valued for their maturity and experience.  In part one of this month's The Changing Face of America series, listen as NPR's Barbara Bradley reports on the mixed experiences of older workers in the high tech workplace.
Links
Government Resources
Dennis Hubbard, 51, welcomes ergonomic advances made by KEYSPAN Energy, Northport, N.Y.
Photo by Daniel Rosenbaum |
San Francisco & Long Island
Wednesday, May 31, 2000
About 12 percent of today's workforce is made up of people 55 and older. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects by the year 2025, the number will have jumped to 20 percent. Physical labor can not only get more challenging as workers age, but years of hard labor can lead to serious health problems. Some firms are trying to accommodate older workers physical or health limitations, and a few companies are even taking extra steps to make life on the job less stressful. Listen as NPR's Wendy Schmelzer reports on the physical
difficulties, blue-collar workers face on the job as they get older.
More Photos
Links
Government Resources
Bureau of Labor Statistics Report on Workplace Injuries
Seattle
Thursday, June 1, 2000
What happens at a company when the boss is half the age of one of her employees? One of the problems facing corporations today, is how to keep
employees across the generations working together as a team. As workers stay on the job into their later years, conflicts between middle age and younger workers
arise. Listen to the last of a three part series on older workers, NPR's Robert Smith reports on inter-generational conflict in the workforce at the Seattle office of U.S. West, the regional phone utility.
Links
Government Resources
Links
Software Council Fellowship Program: SCFP, Inc. is a private non-profit corporation whose mission is to provide highly skilled workers to the software industry through retraining and education and to educate the general public to the unique culture and requirements of the software industry.
Ergonomics Research, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
Center for Social Epidemiology, University of California - Irvine
Applied Ergonomics Conference
Human Factors Society (ergonomics)
Government Resources
GAO Report Social Security reform: Raising Retirement Ages Improves Program Solvency but May Cause Hardship for Some T-HEHS-98-207 7/15/98
Older Workers' Injuries Entail Lengthy Absences from Work, Issues in Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics Summary 96-6, April 1996
Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSDs) and Workplace Factors A Critical Review of Epidemiologic Evidence for Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders of the Neck, Upper Extremity, and Low Back, National Institue for Occupational Safety and Health U.S. Department of Health and Human Services July 1997 www.cdc.gov
Workforce and Aging Links from the National Aging Information Center
Workforce Injury Data U.S.Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
The Changing Face of America is an 18-month long NPR project that tells the stories of regular, everyday Americans and the issues they face at a time of rapid and dramatic change in the U.S. This special series can be heard on NPR's Talk of the Nation, All Things Considered and Morning Edition.
The Changing Face of America series is sponsored by
The Pew Charitable
Trusts.
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