Media, PA, January. 27, 2010:

 

By Diane Prokop
Times Staff Writer

On television, women in their 50s are often portrayed as "cougars," baby boomers who grew up to be confident enough in themselves to go after and get anything they wanted - even younger men.

In reality, however, many 50-something women have lost that confidence. They've not only been downsized or sent packing like many of this country's 15.3 million folks on the unemployment line, but they've also been demoralized by the reception they've received in the job market.

Their skills, their degrees, their experience . . . all of it deemed not valuable enough to hire them.

"We know we're good. We know we've worked for forty years and nobody wants to hire us. It's sad. It's an insult," said 56-year-old Linda M., who was laid off last spring.

Denise Kligge, who lives in Modena Park, has been out of work since Oct. 3, 2008. She turned 58 on New Year's Day.

Kligge has a bachelor's degree and experience as a drafter, bookkeeper and an Automatic Data Processing (ADP) payroll clerk. She also is an experienced fund-raiser. She organizes the annual Amy's Fund Walk in memory of her daughter, who died of cervical cancer in 2004. The walk raises money to educate women about the disease and help pay for medical tests so they can fight it.

Without any work prospects, and concerned that her unemployment compensation would soon run out, Kligge decided to apply for a $10-an-hour job with a collection agency on Southampton Road since it was not far from her home. She thought the interview was going well - until she asked a question once deemed a sign of someone with ambition.

"I questioned about opportunities for moving up in the company. I was asked why would I be interested in that?" she said. "The interview ended right there. I was shocked."

Linda M. worked for the phone company, both Bell and Verizon, for 30 years, and then spent 10 years as a contractor doing drafting and design engineering and training other workers to do it as well.

"I never pursued a degree because I didn't have to. The training they gave you was excellent. I had all kinds of engineering tech courses," said the Bucks County resident, who asked that her last name be withheld because of her job search.

"I did well there. I was downsized."

While her resume is loaded with experience, the lack of a degree has hurt Linda M. Internet applications filter out those who don't have one. Even that one advantage in the good old days of job-hunting - knowing somebody - isn't enough these days to overcome the paper deficit.

A nephew's girlfriend was the recruiter for a drafting job that Linda M. said she could do in her sleep. The recruiter told her that she couldn't even submit her name without the degree.

After months of unemployment and sending out more than 200 resumes, Linda M. took a job that she'll be starting soon. It pays less than half the money she'd previously made.

"It's like a slap in the face," she said.

Linda S. is 52. The Northeast Philadelphia resident lost her job in the advertising department at the Philadelphia Inquirer in March 2008. She took a voluntary layoff because she'd figured it was just a matter of time before her number was up.

"I took the severance because I didn't know what was going to happen to the company," she said, referring to a subsequent filing for bankruptcy protection by the paper's owner, Philadelphia Media Holdings.

Linda S. has an associate's degree in advertising art that she earned in the 1970s, but she wanted to update her skills and did some research to evaluate schools.

She took a class in medical billing and coding in Elkins Park, participated in almost eight months of training and got a job with a medical-billing company in Jenkintown.

She was told she'd be paid $14 per hour. The next day the company called and told her the position was no longer available, but they had another job that paid $13 per hour.

"He knew I was desperate," Linda S. said.

She believes the switch occurred because of age bias.

When she arrived for her first day, there was a young girl in the billing position who, Linda S. would later learn, had just completed a class with the same certification but without the years of customer-service experience that she had.

The job lasted seven weeks before Linda S. was let go.

"You just don't fit the mold," the office manager told her when she asked why.

Now she's back on unemployment and running out of hope.

"Thank God they extended me twenty more weeks," she said of her jobless benefits.

You often hear people talk about reinventing themselves, especially in this era of high unemployment. On resumes, Kligge's been told to leave off her bachelor's degree and include only her bookkeeping or ADP experience.

She always wanted to be a nurse. The question is whether she can afford the education.

"I have a seventeen-year-old granddaughter. I've got college tuition coming up. I can't think about sending her and me to college," she said.

Kligge realizes there are a lot of people in the same predicament - women and men - victims of downsizing and finding themselves not quite eligible for Social Security.

"I baby-sat at twelve, had a Saturday job at sixteen and went to work at seventeen. Here I am at fifty-eight and being told nobody wants me," Kligge said. "They're putting me out to pasture . . . ."

"But they're not giving us any grass," said Linda S.

Reporter Diane Prokop can be reached at 215-354-3036 or dprokop@phillynews.com