"-agers"

There's hardly any local employment for anyone in his 40s. Scanning the want ads will show you just how forgotten middle-aged people are in this information society.

The ads want 20-somethings for jobs in call centers, BPO (business process outsourcing), IT, nursing and the service industries. Only rarely do you see ads targeting 40- and 50-year olds.

The last ad for 40-year olds I saw was for a cook at Boracay. Ads for senior managers are few and far between.

There are simply too many young guys competing for too few jobs. These jobs also seem so scarce, however, that you've got IT graduates frying patties at McDonald's or swabbing floors at Chowking. You've also got doctors turning into nurses.

The government calls this underemployment, a condition that is, however, far better than unemployment. It's today's take on that Chinese adage, "Half of something is better than nothing."

So, it's half of something for the young 'uns and nothing at all for the older 'uns.

This stunning turn of events means that "middle-agers" who can't find work will have to be supported by their children. There seems to be no other alternative since dad's skills (honed in the 1970s and 80s) are almost Mesozoic in today's job market.

If dad's out of work, it seems that junior with his hot college degree stands a far better chance of finding a job than dad. So junior or big sis take dad's place as the family wage earner, either here or as an OFW (Overseas Filipino Worker).

That's a huge burden for kids. Children will have to become breadwinners when their still productive parents are in their 40s. In effect, children will become their parents' parents.

Dad, on the other hand, is reduced to a pensioner (courtesy of his children) or a nanny to the grandkids along with mom.

This is not the world as it should be. It's the world turned upside down. And it's all because there are too many Pinoys fighting for the few hot jobs that didn't exist a decade ago.

Is this the real 21st century workplace?

That still leaves us with the problem of what to do with unemployed 40-, 50- and 60-year olds who want to work, who have loads of experience and who know how to lead and manage.

If this were the USA, these "-agers" can go work for Wal-Mart at paltry wages. Or they can flash fatherly and motherly smiles at guests as employees of Disney World.

This is the Philippines, however, and I am hard pressed to recall a hot business or industry apart from call centers that will employ "-agers" as readily as it would 20-year olds.

There has to be a way to further harness the productivity and talent of this community.