More Older Americans Returning to Work Force

After a lifetime of working in the restaurant business, banking, toy sales and hotel operations, Garry Freid retired six years ago.

He played poker, cruised the high seas with his wife and traveled across the country to visit his grandchildren. But it wasn’t enough.

“I got bored,” he said. “I just made up my mind I had to do something.”

So at age 82, Freid retired from retirement and opened a deli, serving up overstuffed sandwiches of corned beef, pastrami and salami.

Freid is typical of a growing number of retirees who are returning to the work force for more than just a paycheck.

Researchers say more studies are needed to find out why seniors are rejoining the ranks of the working.

University of Florida sociologist Amy Pienta analyzed limited data on returning workers in the 1990s and found many of them missed their friends and their work--as well as the extra money.

U.S. Department of Labor statistics indicate seniors are a growing segment of the work force. There were 3.8 million people older than 65 employed in 1999, 2.9% of all workers. That’s up from 3.6 million seniors in the work force in 1995.

For Freid, the idea to go back to work came to him last fall, when he read a newspaper story about a New York delicatessen. It carried a picture of a corned beef sandwich--steamed, stacked, thinly sliced, smothering the rye bread it sat atop.

“It made my mouth water,” Freid said. “When I saw that, I just had to do the same thing.”

That clipping from The New York Times is now pinned to a message board above his desk in a tiny office at the back of his 120-seat restaurant. He dishes out his home-cooked, Kosher-style sandwiches to a bustling lunch crowd in a trendy, fast growing section of Tampa.

“If seniors still have their mind intact and they’re mobile, they should insist on doing something,” Freid said. “They’ve got to get up in the morning to go somewhere.”

Louis Davis, 79, and John H. Stephen, 78, agree. They, too, grew weary of retirement. But they didn’t have the capital to become self-employed.

Davis and Stephen, both Tampa residents, are greeters at Wal-Mart. Each works about 35 hours a week.

“Loneliness. That’s why I went back to work,” said Davis, a former forklift operator who retired in 1985. He went back to work at Wal-Mart when the store opened eight years ago. He enjoys meeting shoppers and especially helping disabled people in and out of the store.

“Also for health--because when you sit down, you begin to think about everything,” he added.

Social Security brings in about $1,200 a month for Davis and his wife. His paycheck helps out.

Stephen, a retired U.S. Army sergeant with 20 years service, looked forward to retirement, but found it disappointing.

He’s been a greeter for six years.

“I was going to sit around and fish,” Stephen said. “I did a little bit. But I needed something else to do. I tried sitting around home, doing nothing. It just didn’t work.”

Bentley Lipscomb, state director of the AARP and former Florida Secretary of Elder Affairs, said there are few opportunities for active middle- or upper-income seniors who want to go back to work.

“I don’t see any effort to reach out to these people,” Lipscomb said. “We have not adjusted to the fact that we are keeping people alive and healthier longer. We have not turned the corner.”