Mining Golden Years : Older workers, prized for their experience, are being recruited to meet growing demands for temporary help.

By JIM SCHACHTER

Feb. 2, 1989 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

Lorraine Foster hadn’t planned on starting over as a temporary secretary at age 62. But when the management-consultant firm that she worked for closed, Foster quickly discovered that Kelly Services, the temporary placement firm, was one of the few ready sources of employment for an older person with a narrow range of skills.

At first, the Westminster resident applied for permanent, executive assistant jobs. “On the phone, they’d say, ‘How soon can you get here?’ . . . Then when they saw how old I was, I was suddenly overqualified. I developed an inferiority complex and was about ready to give it all up.”

Then her cleaning lady suggested Kelly Services. That was in 1981 and Foster has been working as a temporary executive secretary ever since.

Perfect Match

For Kelly Services, it’s a perfect match. Desperate--as are other temporary placement firms--to satisfy employers’ mounting demands for temporary workers, Kelly is reaching out to older people for help in filling job orders.

“The working world needs these people,” said Charlotte Schwartz, a Kelly district manager in Portland, Ore., who describes herself as “65 and over” as she tours the country urging older workers to sign up with the Troy, Mich., firm.

Demographic trends have forced temporary placement firms to heap new attention on senior citizens. Young people are a shrinking portion of the labor pool, while the elderly are the fastest-growing portion of the population.

“The so-called ‘baby bust’ is upon us,” explained Thomas Anton, executive vice president of Kelly.

Seniors Recruited

The result: To attract older workers, temporary agencies such as Kelly and Volt Temporary Services are sending recruiters to speak at meetings of retirees, working with the American Assn. of Retired Persons and other senior citizen organizations, and holding special events aimed at the senior population.

In Los Angeles, Careers for Older Americans, a nonprofit job referral agency for people 55 and older, has been working with Volt and two smaller agencies to place seniors in temporary jobs. And another 20 agencies have pleaded with the organization for help in recruiting seniors, according to associate director Denise D. Jessup.

To the older worker, temporary agencies may offer training on new office equipment--word processors and personal computers, for instance--that wasn’t around during the senior’s earlier career. To the employer, the agencies emphasize that an older worker may bring the kind of dependability, experience and resourcefulness that might be lacking in a younger temporary.

Wealth of Experience

“One thing I’ll never understand is why companies ask people to retire at 55,” Schwartz said. “To me, they are letting go invaluable experience. The reason for it is they can get younger people at a lesser price. But how can you equate that? How long does it take to get a younger person up to that level of experience?”

In fact, many employers actively seek out older workers. About 40% of the firms that contacted Careers for Older Americans during a recent period said either that they prefer to hire older workers or that they seek employees possessing the reliability and knowledge associated with older people.

March of Dimes Director Anthony F. Giacalone said his experience with older workers such as Foster is consistently positive.

“They’re hard to ruffle and add a real sense of stability,” he explained. One-third of the organization’s staff of 40 in Glendale is 56 or older, he said.

Few Benefits

Critics say some employers want the best of two worlds. They slice their permanent work forces to the bone, jettisoning many older workers in the process. Then they restaff with temporaries--sometimes the same individuals they just forced out--who get few, if any, benefits and have no job security, even if their hourly pay is about the same as that of a full-time worker.

“We are seeing more and more part-time job offerings that aren’t giving benefits and aren’t giving people the full income they need,” Jessup noted.

Temporary workers in Los Angeles County earned an average of $7.81 per hour in September, 1987, according to a survey by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Hourly wages ranged from an average of $4.31 for manual laborers to $8.28 for typists to $21 for computer programmers.

The survey does not detail those numbers for Orange County.

Big Pay Cut

Unlike many senior temporary employees, Foster does not work for the money. “I just work to keep my brain matter going,” said Foster, a Chicago native who likes to read, travel and keep busy with her two daughters and three grandchildren.

The pay is only about half of what she earned at her previous job. “But remember--I worked for that man for 17 years,” she said. “I was his administrative assistant and took care of everything.”

Foster said she enjoys the variety of assignments Kelly has offered her. Among them: stints at the city manager’s and city clerk’s offices in Costa Mesa, a camera and film manufacturer, and a telephone manufacturer.

The big advantage with Kelly, she said, is that “you have 3 weeks hither, thither or yon. If there’s something else you’d rather do, you don’t have to accept a job.”

Schwartz and Anton of Kelly say older people who are working as temporaries to earn a living are a minority of the seniors, who make up 12% to 15% of Kelly’s work force of 500,000. Like Foster, most are retirees looking for a little extra income or to escape the doldrums of retirement without being tied down to a full-time job.

“You can’t travel all the time,” Schwartz said. “How much golf can you play? How much television can you watch?”

Times staff writer Mary Ann Galante in Orange County contributed to this story.

WHAT TEMPORARIES GET PAID Average hourly earnings for a representative list of temporary jobs. Figures are for the Los Angeles-Long Beach area, as of September, 1987 (latest available).

Computer programmer $21.00

Registered nurse 20.91

Craftsman 13.19

Licensed practical nurse 12.32

Legal secretary 11.10

Word processor 9.73

Typist 8.28

Bookkeeper 7.79

Motor vehicle driver 6.97

Nursing aide $6.41

Messenger 5.55

Stock clerk 5.41