Commmentary: Growth and Pitfalls of Second Careers

In an interview for The New York Times with Marc Freeman, author of Encore: Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life, Marci Alboher explores with Freeman "the growing phenomenon of encore careers, the obstacles facing older workers, and why it is so hard to come up with language to describe this new period of work and life."

Among other things, Freeman tells how, while society is set up to make retirement happen seamlessly, individuals are often on their own when it comes to launching a significant second career, "even though we desperately need people to move into this direction." Furthermore, he would like to see older workers avoid spending decades in "bridge jobs" with Home Depot and the like and believes that employers "need to recognize, particularly those facing talent shortages, that there is more than one place to look when filling these gaps."

Source: The New York Times "Discovering Second Acts In Sustained Working Lives" (February 11, 2008)