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Seniors struggle to rebound from unemployment

A t age 69, Mario Gutierrez arrives at the Pepsi Bottling facility at 5 a.m. and ends his work day about 12 hours later. By the time he heads home, he has visited about a half dozen customers, buying one a cup of Cuban coffee or chatting with another about their sales. While traditional retirement age was four year ago, for Gutierrez it's not even in his near-term vision. ``I feel satisfied,'' Gutierrez says.

In many workplaces during the last year, older workers haven't fared as well as Gutierrez, a 40-year veteran of the Pepsi system who still receives company awards for performance. In workplaces of all sizes, many older workers were the first to get the ax, mostly because of their higher salaries and healthcare costs.

As a group, they are finding it most difficult to rebound from unemployment. The number of unemployed workers age 55 to 64 has nearly tripled since the recession began, to about 1.6 million of the nation's 15.4 million unemployed as of November, according to the Labor Department

Are some happy at work?

I was more than a bit skeptical when I was assigned to write a story about people in South Florida who are truly happy with their jobs.

After all, while this Labor Day

may not have a hurricane looming, it still feels like we're facing an economic disaster -- especially with regard to the job market. Miami-Dade and Broward's most recent unemployment rates are almost double what they were last year. And Florida's July unemployment rate of 10.7 percent is the worst since October 1975 -- making it quite literally the worst in my lifetime, since I was born in 1975.

Miami pol gets headache over name mixup

Miami political consultant Armando Gutierrez was not amused to find his name in news articles that said he'd been indicted on public corruption and money-laundering charges in New Mexico. Wrong Gutierrez. The Gutierrez under indictment is Texas-based and operates a political consulting firm with a similar name.

``Just a nightmare,'' says Miami's Gutierrez, 59, of Gutierrez and Associates. The original story in The Albuquerque Journal identified the indicted Gutierrez as a ``longtime south Florida political operative'' -- and that article got picked up by other news outlets. Gutierrez says he fielded ``hundreds'' of calls and e-mails. ``I was very, very upset.''

Albuquerque Journal assistant city editor Jake Rigdon says the paper ran a retraction on its website Friday and in print Saturday: ``The Armando Gutierrez indicted this week with former Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron is not a Miami-based political consultant, as reported in Thursday's Journal. The Armando Gutierrez, 61, who

Illegal immigrants going home, and local labor market at risk

Malaquías Gaspar left his farm village in southern Mexico when the economy soured in the mid-1990s. He headed north illegally and found the proverbial better opportunity in South Florida, where he made a decent living by picking fruit and building homes.

But the U.S. economic crisis has disrupted his life and the lives of countless other illegal immigrants who are now planning to leave or have already left.

Gaspar recently returned to Zimatlán de Alvarez in Oaxaca state, primarily to care for his ailing mother -- but also to plan for the future should the economy worsen in South Miami-Dade County, where his wife and four children remain.

Wage stagnation oozes into more workplaces

Has your boss cut your pay? Taken away overtime? Reduced your workweek? Eliminated raises? Chopped your benefits? Put you on an unpaid furlough?

Join the millions who have seen their take-home pay flattened by the double whammy of recession and its still-rising unemployment rate.

Compensation so far in 2009 has been cut by the largest amount in nearly two decades, with a government index of real average weekly earnings down at least 1.9 percent since its high point last December. And the average workweek -- now down to 33 hours -- is the shortest on modern record.