Little to Cheer About:
Unemployment and the Older Worker—December 2008
 Many more workers were without jobs in December as the unemployment rate
rose to 7.2 percent for the total labor force and to 4.9 percent for the labor
force aged 55 and over.
 The number of unemployed in December increased by 632,000, nearly 60,000
of whom were aged 55 or older.
 Of the 11.1 million unemployed men and women in December, 1.4 million were
at least age 55.
On Friday, January 9, 2009, the Bureau of
Labor Statistics released the unemployment
figures for December 2008. As anticipated,
the situation had continued to deteriorate.
The unemployment rate for the total labor
force was 7.2 percent, up from 6.8 percent in
November.1
Persons aged 55 and over experienced a
less pronounced increase in their
unemployment rate, which rose from 4.8
percent in November to 4.9 percent in
December. Nonetheless, the December
unemployment rate for the 55-plus
workforce was the highest monthly rate it
has been since October 1992.
In December, just over 1.4 million persons
aged 55 and over were without jobs and
looking for work, 566,000 more than a
year earlier. Men accounted for nearly 60
percent of the increase.
Comparison to the Last Recession
The economy has been in recession since
December 2007, and the current recession
has already lasted longer than the previous
Figure 1
Unemployment Rates for Persons Aged 16+ and 55+, 1948-December 2008
12
Percent
10
16+
8
6
4
55+
2
0
19
48
19
51
19
54
19
57
19
60
19
63
19
66
19
69
19
72
19
75
19
78
19
81
19
84
19
87
19
90
19
93
19
96
19
99
20
02
20
D
ec 05
.2
00
8
Fact Sheet
AARP Public Policy Institute
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey,
http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/outside.jsp?survey=ln, accessed January 9, 2009. Rates for 1948–2007 are annual averages.
Little to Cheer About: Unemployment and the Older Worker—December 2008
recession of March to November 2001.
During the 2001 recession, the
unemployment rate for the aged 55+
workforce rose from 2.7 percent to 3.5
percent, or by 30 percent. Since the onset
of the current recession in December 2007,
the unemployment rate for persons in this
group has risen from 3.1 percent to 4.9
percent, an increase of 58 percent.
in December 2008. Some of these
individuals can be classified as discouraged—
i.e., they are not looking for work because
they believe no work is available, could
not find work, lack the necessary
schooling, or fear employers will view
them as too old. The number of older
persons classified as discouraged by the
Bureau of Labor Statistics nearly tripled
from December 2007 to December 2008,
rising from 53,000 to 154,000.
Although the trough of the 2001 recession
was November, that was not the end of the
bad news for older workers, whose
unemployment rate continued to climb,
albeit not steadily, for some time. By
March 2006, the rate had fallen to 2.6
percent, but it then rose quickly to 3
percent and hovered around 3 percent until
early in the current recession.
Unemployment Lasts Longer for
Older Workers
The unemployment rate for older persons
is typically lower than that for the total
workforce (Figure 1), a pattern that has
continued for the past year. However, the
increase in the unemployment rate over
the past year was somewhat sharper for the
aged 55+ workforce than for the total—
58 percent vs. 47 percent.
Long-term unemployment tends to be a
greater problem for older job seekers than
their younger counterparts. In December
2008, 32 percent of job seekers aged 55 and
over, 23 percent of those ages 25 to 54, and
18 percent of those under age 25 had been
unemployed for 27 weeks or more.
1
Data are from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,
Employment Situation: December 2008, available
at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm;
Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population
Survey, available at http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/
outside.jsp?survey=ln; and Employment and
Earnings, January 2008, available at
http://www.bls.gov/opub/ee/empearn200801.pdf.
Many older workers who lose their jobs
drop out of the labor force rather than
continue what can be a long and fruitless
job search. Some of them say that they
would like to be working, even though
they are not looking for a job. The number
of older (55+) non-labor force participants
who reported wanting a job rose from
826,000, or 1.9 percent of those not in the
labor force, in December 2007 to
1.1 million, or 2.6 percent of nonparticipants,
Fact Sheet 150, January 2009
Written by Sara E. Rix
AARP Public Policy Institute
601 E St., NW, Washington, DC 20049
www.aarp.org/ppi
202-434-3910, ppi@aarp.org
 2009, AARP.
Reprinting with permission only
2
Fact Sheet
As bleak as the situation looked for older
workers in December, the news was not all
bad. The number of employed persons aged
55 and older was higher by more than
875,000 in December 2008 than in
December 2007, and the employment-topopulation ratio for this group remained
relatively stable. The number of employed
aged 55 and over actually increased
somewhat more than the population of those
ages. In contrast, the number of employed in
the total population fell by nearly 3 million,
and the employment-to-population ratio for
the total population declined. Persons aged
55 and older were 18.9 percent of the total
employed population in December 2008, a
slight increase from 17.9 percent in
December 2007.