John Hyde has been around.
Born in Montana in 1942, Hyde moved to Washington state when he was 6. He graduated high school in 1960 and, after a brief stint at college, moved from the Northwest to the Southeast and hit many states in-between, following jobs to Mississippi, Louisiana, Idaho and California.
Now 74 and with a career spanning almost six decades, Hyde is chasing jobs again. The challenges for the septuagenarian are different, but this time he has some help.
“He came in here with a mess of a resume,” said Brendan Howe, an AmeriCorps volunteer who’s working this summer at Federal Way’s Multi-Service Center. “It was six pages, and it wasn’t written in [Microsoft] Word. After we formatted it, it was 14 pages.”
Hyde takes the bus weekly from his nursing home in Auburn to MSC in Federal Way, taking part in MSC’s Job Readiness Training program. There, the 25-year-old Howe helps him clean up his resume, write cover letters, prepare for interviews, improve his typing and better sell his extensive skill set to prospective employers.
“I’m trying, through Brendan and other places, to get a job,” Hyde said.
Hyde isn’t alone. According to the Bureau for Labor Statistics, the percentage of people aged 65 and older who were in the workforce declined sharply between 1948 and the early ’90s, when it started to climb again. Looked at from 1977-2007, employment of workers 65 and over increased 101 percent.
When such Americans get jobs, they keep them. But getting them remains the issue.
“Employment applications can be very complex,” said Amanda Santo, MSC’s Employment and Education Director. “For folks not familiar with technology or without access to technology, it can be difficult.”
On top of that, the physical changes associated with aging make getting around more difficult. Data from the most recent census show 49.8 percent of all those 65 and older have some form of disability, and Hyde is among that number: spinal stenosis keeps him in a wheelchair, and lymphedema, diabetes and episodes of gout can have painful effects.
But Hyde makes no excuses. He wants to work so he can provide assistance to his daughter and his grandchildren, and he feels that being employed puts him back in his element.
“I feel an obligation to my daughter, and when I’m working I feel very comfortable,” Hyde said. “I enjoy that, and I need to help [my daughter] — she has two children and has had a rough go. She lost her house a few years ago when the bank foreclosed, and she’s still getting orientated to the world.”
He’s optimistic he’ll land a job after the Job Readiness program — “There’s no doubt in my mind,” he said — and he has reason to be optimistic. Santo said the program has a 75 to 80 percent success rate for MSC’s adult clients, with “success” defined as meeting a client’s self-determined goals — usually stability and self-reliance.
That might not come to Hyde right away, but he said he’s happy to be patient – as is MSC.
“You are in the program until you’ve met your goals,” Santo said. “There’s no time limit.”
For information on the Job Readiness Training program, visit mschelps.org/gethelp/edandemp
