Reverse Mortgage Guide

The U.S. unemployment rate jumped to 6.5% in October, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Some of the industries that saw big job losses were construction, retail, and financial services. If you’re one of the 10.1 million unemployed Americans, you may be wondering if you should try to find a job in your current field or switch to a new career. Here are five of the best jobs for people over 50.

According to AARP, the following jobs are expected to have a large number of openings in the future; welcome workers over 50; and offer scheduling, flexibility, and benefits attractive to people over 50.

— Nursing. Employment in the health care field continues to grow and nurses continue to be in demand. Be prepared to spend two to six years in school to become a practical or registered nurse. Depending upon your specialization and location you could earn $20 to $60 an hour.

— Health care technician. People in this field need one to four years of training to specialize in areas such as nutrition, radiology, physical therapy, or laboratory. Pay ranges from $12 to $30 an hour.

— Health care administration. Jobs involve clerical, administrative, or management work in the areas of insurance or general health care. Pay for administrative positions ranges from $20 to $30 an hour.

— Teaching assistant and aide. If you enjoy working with children and have an education background you may find employment in a variety of school settings. Pay ranges from $8 to $15 an hour.

— General merchandise and grocery retailing. People will always need to eat so jobs will continue to exist in grocery and other retail stores. Depending on the job you may not need any special training beyond the high school level. Sales associates and customer service workers can earn about $8 to $15 an hour while supervisors and managers may earn $15 to $40 an hour.

Try to find a job that uses some of the job experience you already have to cut down on the amount of time you will have to spend going back to school for retraining.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, November 8th, 2008 at 5:03 pm and is filed under Topics for Seniors . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.