Frustrated with their job searches these workers decided to stop looking for traditional jobs. Some retired, while others are reinventing themselves.
Jean Walker lost her job three years ago as a financial analyst for United Technologies (UTXPRA) in Florida and scrambled to find anything. She said looking for jobs at 62 was incredibly demoralizing. "You are interviewing with people in their 30's and you can see they're thinking: "You could be my mother and I don't want my mother working for me." She applied for hundreds of jobs and interviewed for 25. She took the first offer from a nonprofit botanical garden for a salary of $27,000 a year, just a third of her former salary. She retired when she hit 65 and could get on Medicare, after her employer wouldn't give her a raise.
