- Laid-off workers are taking lower-paying jobs amid a tough job market for white-collar roles.
- Many workers struggle to regain previous wage levels after being laid off.
- More than 800 people who experienced long periods of unemployment shared their frustrations with BI.
Some Americans who were laid off from high-paying jobs are responding to a tougher job market for white-collar workers by accepting a much lower or lower role than they had before.
Bill Rees, 65, said he earned about $130,000 a year as a hotel general manager, but after a layoff last year, he has struggled to secure anything in that pay range.
Rees now earns about $25 an hour at a property management company in Wisconsin, where he moved to care for his mother. He said bills are tight and his high Medicare insurance premium is straining his finances. He said he doesn’t spend much time looking for other jobs after hundreds of applications, though he’s still working hard to make ends meet.
“I just can’t take it anymore,” Rees said. “I anticipate working until at least 20 years after I’m dead to make it all even.”
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Rees is one of many Americans who have struggled to find work recently. Since October, more than 800 recent job seekers ages 18 to 76 answered Business Insider’s informal, non-representative job search surveys and shared their stories with reporters via email.
Struggling to make ends meet
Jamie Jewell, 58, worked in public relations and administrative assistant roles and earned about $50,000 at the height of her career with a company car and benefits. Between layoffs, she held down temporary jobs as a radio producer and defense instructor, though in recent years she’s struggled to find steady work that pays the bills.
Jewell faced a divorce in 2016 that set her back financially, and she moved in with her uncle six years ago when finances got tight.
Jewell, who is based in the Dallas area, earns about $1,000 a month answering phones for a generator company and taking care of her father and uncle. She said she has no money to retire or support her children financially, and she plans to continue working. Despite hundreds of unsuccessful applications, she said she is holding out hope that something better will come her way.
“At an interview in a corporate restaurant, a group of people in their 20s and early 30s came into the room and immediately looked at me, their gray hair began to grow and their faces fell because even because I was perfect for the position, they wanted someone younger,” Jewell said.
BI previously reported that older Americans often had career regrets, such as not prioritizing education and changing jobs too often. Statistics show that it is often more difficult for older Americans to return to a comparable role after a layoff. Contributing to this is what some see as age discrimination. In a 2022 survey conducted by AARP, 64% of people over 50 say they have either experienced or witnessed age discrimination in the workplace.
The struggles of the unemployed and those looking for work have been fueled in part by a slowdown in U.S. employment. Excluding a two-month pandemic-related decline in 2020, US businesses are hiring at the lowest rate since 2013, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. According to the BLS, about 1.6 million people had been looking for work for at least six months as of December, up from 1.3 million a year earlier.
To be sure, the unemployment rate remains low compared to historical levels, and the layoff rate remains low, according to BLS data.
How to navigate a tough job market
Cam, 60, worked as a graphic designer and technology manager, earning about $200,000 before a layoff in June 2023 followed by a rescinded offer. After 18 months, he landed a position as vice president of marketing for a plumbing company in November — an upgrade in title but with a salary in the high five figures, less than half of his previous role.
“I regret that I allowed myself to be pigeonholed within a single industry, as I think it made my time to be re-employed especially difficult because I was entirely in the technology industry,” Cam said.
Cam, who asked not to use his first name because of ongoing salary negotiations, said he might not have struggled so much with applications if he had diversified his resume. He’s struggled to find six-figure jobs and finances are tighter than he expected. However, he said he hopes to land a position that meets his salary expectations and has enough to stay afloat.
In a challenging job market, accepting a lower-paying or lower-level job can serve as “a career stepping stone rather than a stepping stone,” Jennifer Herrity, a career expert at Indeed, told BI.
Herrity said workers who accept jobs completely different from their desired role should use the opportunity to gain experience, develop skills and network effectively. When applying for roles, Herrity said job seekers can consider dropping a role from their resume if they feel it’s completely unrelated to their desired role.
Andrew McCaskill, a career expert at LinkedIn, said that taking a “bridging job” can help people “stay connected to the workforce, gain experience and avoid resume gaps, which can ultimately easier to land your desired role when the job market improves.”
However, this career decision comes with risks. McCaskill said accepting a lower-paying role can have long-term implications on earnings, as it can take a while for someone to work up to their previous salary. Other challenges can come with taking on a very different job “if the skills and experience gained are not easily transferable to the roles you’re pursuing,” he said.
Individuals who move into lower-level roles within their industry may have a better chance of returning. Scott Fite began looking for roles in IT when he was laid off from his job as a systems analyst last April. He said he spent several hours every day applying for jobs, but had little luck.
“I applied for everything I could be considered qualified for, even if it might have been an inconvenient trip,” Fite, who is in his 60s and based in Pennsylvania, told Business Insider.
When Fite’s severance payments ended in October, he was still unemployed. It wasn’t until late November that Fite said he received his first job offer: a programming position that was quite similar to his previous role. The downside was that the salary was $68,000 a year, roughly $21,000 less than what he earned at his last job. He decided to accept the offer.
Fite said his lower income has led him and his wife to eat out less, cut some subscriptions and pay for repairs on their two vehicles instead of buying new ones. Looking ahead, Fite is optimistic that he will be able to reach his previous level of compensation.
“I think in three or four years, I’ll be back to where I was in terms of wages,” he said. “If I get another offer for more money, I can always take it. I just had to move on again.”
