‘I became invisible when I turned 60’: The hidden crisis of late-career unemployment

‘I became invisible when I turned 60’: The hidden crisis of late-career unemployment Genna Contino Mon, June 22, 2026 at 9:28 PM GMT+7 6 min read Job seekers in their 50s and 60s say they’re struggling to find work, even with decades of experience and specialized degrees. - MarketWatch photo illustration/iStockphoto Career coach Colleen Paulson has heard from hundreds of professionals age 50 or older struggling to land a job over the past two years. “I have 35-plus years’ experience and I can’t find a job that pays over $20 an hour,” one told her in a LinkedIn message. Micron’s earnings are a must-watch market event — with profit growth approaching 1,000% ‘We are habitually frugal’: My wife and I have money. How do we help our children without ruining their independence? Americans’ 401(k) balances hit record levels last year. See how you compare. Alan Greenspan, the most powerful Fed chairman of the modern era, dies at 100 A major test is coming for the stock market, and Morgan Stanley warns that the Fed won’t rescue investors “Was a finalist five times in my last search five years ago and was passed over because I was in my 50s,” said another. One job seeker put it bluntly: “I became invisible when I turned 60.” Paulson, founder of the career-coaching site Ageless Careers, said she’s seeing the job market for older professionals continue to deteriorate, as clients increasingly cite ageism as a barrier to getting an offer letter. Companies are cutting costs by hiring younger workers with less experience, she said, while older workers with decades of experience are rejected from the same roles and forced to dip into retirement savings early. “I’m seeing so many GoFundMes on LinkedIn for people that are losing everything after an extended job search,” Paulson said. “It’s heartbreaking, honestly.” Labor-market data reflect the trend, as 38% of unemployed workers 55 and older have gone without a job for 27 weeks or longer, compared to about 16% of workers ages 16 to 54, according to AARP. Whether by choice or because they’ve finally had it with the brutal hiring landscape, some are leaving the workforce completely. The labor-force participation rate for workers age 55 and over has been falling steeply since 2020, now sitting at 37%, while the same rate for workers ages 25 to 54 continues to hover around historic highs. MarketWatch spoke with several job seekers over the age of 55 who declined to share their full names, out of fear it would hurt their employment prospects. Several said they’re considering retiring early, even though they don’t want to or feel like they can’t afford to. One 59-year-old with 34 years of experience in the financial-services sector has been job hunting for 17 months, to no avail. A supply-chain expert said she cut 15 years of experience off her resume to appear younger. She and her husband, who is also unemployed after being laid off two years ago, have had to downsize their home and pull from retirement savings to stay afloat. Read more: The hiring recession is over — but landing a new job is much harder than it looks The stakes are much higher for older employees when layoffs come around compared to younger peers, as the latter group still has decades to recover from a gap in earnings. The rising cost of living exacerbates the dynamic, as the inflation rate reached a three-year high of 4.2% in May. And within the next decade, both Social Security and Medicare benefits are poised to be significantly cut. “Older workers have less time to rebuild those earnings, those savings, that retirement security after a job loss or going back into the labor market at a much lower wage.” said Carly Roszkowski, AARP’s vice president of financial-resilience programming. “And this has compounding effects.” While older workers do not necessarily lose their jobs more frequently than their younger peers, the road back to employment is notoriously much harder. Systemic age bias is a core issue in the hiring process. Nearly three-quarters of older workers (74%) believe age is a barrier to getting hired, according to AARP research, and nearly 1 in 5 report feeling pushed out of their jobs due to their age. Read more: Nearly half of workers 55 and older don’t plan on using AI in their jobs. How to make it work for you. Roszkowski noted that hiring managers often make incorrect assumptions that older workers are less tech-savvy, resistant to change or not worth investing in for training. Furthermore, employers often shy away from older applicants because they are perceived as more expensive to employ due to higher salaries, retirement contributions and healthcare costs. A prolonged job hunt can be a full-blown financial emergency for older workers, as an unemployed 60-year-old does not have ample time to restore the compounding growth of a depleted 401(k). “If [a layoff] happens in your 30s, you have, for a lack of a better word, the luxury to dip into a retirement account, if you nee

‘I became invisible when I turned 60’: The hidden crisis of late-career unemployment

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