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June 15, 2008
LA VERGNE - At age 64, Justin Sok had been thinking about retiring in just a few years from his job at the Whirlpool Corp. refrigerator plant, where he's been a machine operator for the past 20 years.
Instead, he's now having to think about making a career change, forced on him by Whirlpool's plans to close the plant on Aug 15. With so much time invested in his job at the company, Sok says he has no other skills.
"I will have to look for another job, and I might have to go to vocational school and start my life all over again," said Sok, a Murfreesboro resident. "I'm thinking about doing something in the medical field."
He's not alone. The plant will furlough 500 workers when it closes, and many of them are over 50, an age group that finds its options severely limited compared with younger workers.
"There are lots of people here around my age, and we're all going to be looking for jobs," Sok said.
Older workers are particularly hard hit by layoffs in the manufacturing sector because it's harder for them to find jobs that come close to paying the wages they made after years in their old jobs, labor experts say.
"It's an issue we're definitely concerned about," said Karin Miller, communications director for AARP in Tennessee, which offers a variety of resources for displaced older workers.
State and federal displaced-worker programs are available to help Sok and his co-workers, but state Department of Labor and Workforce Development officials concede that with the current economic downturn, this is not the best time to try to find a new job or launch a new career, especially for manufacturing workers.
"Manufacturing jobs have decreased by more than 10,000 in the state in the past year," said department spokeswoman Milissa Reierson. "That is an industry that is not doing well in our state and across the country."
"It can be daunting for someone over 50 to look for a job, but there is help available,'' Miller said. "And employers are starting to realize that recruiting older workers is smart business. While they may require slightly more health care than younger employees, workers who are 50 and older save businesses money that otherwise would be spent recruiting and training someone with significantly less institutional knowledge.''
Overall, older workers are typically employed at a higher rate than their younger counterparts in Tennessee, according to the Labor Department.
In April, the last month for which figures are available, the state's unemployment rate for males ages 55-64 was just 2.2 percent, compared with 6.9 percent for ages 25-34. For females, the jobless rate was just 1.3 percent for ages 55-64, compared with 8.5 percent for ages 25-34.
Starting over is scary
Still, the idea of having to find a new job is a scary prospect, said Vickey Brown, 55, of Antioch, who has been at Whirlpool for 14 years.
The first place the laid-off workers should go is the nearest Tennessee Career Center, said Joan Craig, director of the Labor Department's Dislocated Worker Unit.
These centers offer services that include job fairs, assistance with resume writing, adult education for those who need GED certificates, workshops on inter viewing techniques, and training programs for those seeking new careers, Craig said.
To keep an income stream going after the plant closes, displaced workers can sign up for weekly unemployment-compensation benefits, either online or by phone, Craig said. Benefits generally are available for 26 weeks while the laid-off worker is job-hunting.
But there are special programs to help workers 50 or older whose jobs are lost because a company is shifting production out of the United States, Craig said, a provision that applies to the Whirlpool employees.
Under the federal Trade Adjustment Assistance Program, workers who find a new job within 26 weeks of being laid off can qualify for a wage subsidy if the new job pays less than their old job, Craig said.
Those whose salaries are below $50,000 annually — virtually every hourly worker at the plant — can get up to 50 percent of the difference between their old and new wages for up to two years on the new job, Craig said. The maximum is $10,000 per worker.
But the 50-and-older workers also may qualify for training for careers in "industries on the rise," Reierson said. Among those fields are health care, local government, food services, and accommodations.
"I don't know yet what I'll do," said Alice Wilson, 56, of Nashville, who's spent the past 23 years at Whirlpool. "I'm too young to retire and too old to start over. It's going to be hard.
"Maybe if I'm lucky I'll find a cashier job somewhere, but there aren't many factories left, and those that are still around aren't going to hire older workers. There are a lot of younger people looking for work, too."
Those who choose a qualifying training program would be eligible for up to two years of schooling paid for by the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program, and their unemployment benefits would be extended to a total of two years while in training, state officials said.
Whirlpool is closing the plant because, with the "current market conditions, we must consolidate to eliminate redundancies and optimize our efficiencies," company spokeswoman Monica Teague said.
Insurance is big worry
The company is still working on details of a severance package, she said. But the company will host job fairs and visits by the state's Displaced Worker Unit to explain benefits available to those losing their jobs.
For many of the workers, though, the worry is more about the loss of health-care benefits than wages, Wilson said. "The older workers have more medical problems, and we're not old enough for Medicare yet."
The Trade Adjustment Assistance Program will pay up to 65 percent of the premiums of a qualified displaced worker's COBRA health-care benefits after layoff, the Labor Department's Craig said.
The department will hold meetings with workers at the plant on July 7 to discuss health-care options, she said. The help with COBRA premiums is limited to the length of time the worker is entitled to unemployment benefits, but for those in a training program, that could be up to two years.
Uncertainty over a severance package is worrying most of the workers, said Judy Griffin, 53, of Murfreesboro.
"We've not been offered anything yet," she said. "We don't feel like we're being treated fairly. We heard that when Whirlpool bought Maytag and closed some of their plants, they were offered nice packages."
Just the idea of having to find new jobs and, for most, new careers is the most frightening aspect of the plant shutdown, some workers said.
"I'm 61 and I've been here more than 20 years," said Pat Gilbertson of Antioch. "I don't know if I'll be able to find another job. Who's going to hire me at this age?"
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