STRICTLY BUSINESS: `THINGS GET BETTER WITH AGE' FOR SENIOR JOB-SEEKERS

Job search times get better with age.

Older out-of-work executives find jobs faster than their middle-age colleagues, two recent studies of senior and mid-level executives show.

One study, conducted by Drake Bean Morin Inc., an outplacement and career consulting firm, confirms that "things get better with age" for job-seeking seniors.

"Executives in their 50s and 60s are finding jobs with surprising ease," said Michael McClenic, senior vice president and managing director of DBM in St. Louis. "At a time when companies are having difficulty finding well-qualified employees, they are turning to the more experienced, older executives to fill these positions."

The DBM survey reveals that the average job search time for executives age 41-45 is six months, compared to 5.5 months for executive aged 61-65.

The older candidates, however, lost more ground in salary levels than the younger group. Executives, 41-45, on average left jobs paying $81,000, and landed new ones at $78,000, a difference of about $3,000. Senior citizen executives on average, left jobs paying $69,000, and landed new ones averaging $59,000, a difference of $10,000.

A study by Challenger Gray & Christmas, indicates that unemployed managers and executives are finding jobs faster than any other time over the past 16 years, with 90 percent of them at equivalent or higher prices.

Senior executives finding jobs

The typical 50-plus job hunter takes less than four months to find a job, a Challenger survey said.

The jobless rate for older workers, the survey said, has steadily decreased from the 5 percent reading of August 1992. While unemployment rates fell to a seven-year low during a recent month at 4.1 percent, the rate for workers older than 55 plummeted to 3.1.

Unemployment among women 55 and older fell even lower during the past summer, from 3.7 percent in July to 2.9 in August.

The tighter labor market is encouraging companies to recruit older workers. One hotel chain reports that 12 percent of its reservation clerks are older than 50, and work alongside younger workers, purposely, to pass along loyalty and willing attitudes.

Age discrimination complaints to the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission have dropped during the past three years, from 19,350 in 1992, to 14,650 in 1995.

Gambling eyes on Louisiana

A lot of gambling eyes will be on Louisiana on election day.

Ballot measures to introduce or expand gambling are on the ballot in at least eight states next month. But only in Louisiana are voters deciding whether to "de-legalize" gambling.

Since 1991, Louisiana has become a gambler's paradise with 14 riverboat casinos, 16,000 video poker machines and the huge casino project in New Orleans, a city that cherishes its vices with a let-the-good-times-roll gusto.

But there have been problems in the Big Easy.

Twenty-five people, including a state lawmaker, have been convicted on federal charges involving a mob scheme to infiltrate the video poker industry. One state representative resigned and got three months in prison. Two more legislators who served 47 years in the Louisiana Legislature, are awaiting trial on charges they took payoffs to head off legislation that could hurt video poker.

Now the voters have a chance to wipe out gambling.

Voters in the Pelican state will have a say on whether gambling should stay in the nation's first major attempt to repeal legalized forms of gambling.

One shot at gambling repeal

On Nov. 5, every parish -- the Louisiana equivalent of county -- will have a local-option vote on video poker.

Forty-three counties, including the six with riverboat casinos and 37 on navigable waterways, will decide on floating casinos.

Voters will get only one shot at repeal. However, gambling operations have no limit on how many times they can ask to "open" the state to gambling.

In other words, said Chaney Joseph, executive council at the governor's office in Baton Rouge, if voters approve gambling, that's it ... no more votes.

However, if voters nix gambling, or any portion of gambling, in their parish, gambling interests could request a second vote, which would be up to the Legislature.

If voters do nix gambling, or any portion of it in their parish, gambling operations can continue to operate until their three-year contracts end.

Seeks statewide referendum

Meanwhile, in Illinois, as many as 25 percent of the legislative candidates in the Nov. 5 election have pledged to support a moratorium on gambling issues until a statewide referendum can be held, said one anti-casino group.

Mailings were sent to 74 candidates, asking them to publicly state their position on the expansion of gambling, said Anita Bedell, executive director of the Illinois Church Action on Alcohol Problems.

The group asked for a pledge by the candidates to "oppose and vote against any and all efforts to expand gambling in any form" until a statewide referendum could be taken on the issue in the 1998 general election.

The pledge, said Befell, specifically mentioned opposition to allowing riverboats to remain docked permanently, adding riverboats and land-based casinos or video gambling. It also includes opposition to legislation to let license holders launch boats at two different home ports or move to another location.

Illinois gambling activity

Illinois casino operators want dockside gambling, which has already been adopted by some nearby states, including Missouri.

Gambling receipts and participants dipped in September. Gambling riverboats won $86.3 million, down 14 percent from the same period a year ago, down $6 million from the previous month. Overall attendance was also down 5 percent.

The bulk of the Illinois decline comes from the Chicago suburbs, due largely to the arrival of gambling in nearby Indiana.

However, the grand Victorian at Elgin, in the Chicago area, continued to lead all Illinois casinos, with win totals of $19.1 million. Other casinos and win totals: Alton Belle, $5.6 million; Par-A-Dice at East Peoria, $7.6 million; Casino Rock Island, $1.2 million; Joliet Empress, $11.1 million; Jo Davies $386,000; Metropolis, $6.7 million; Joliet Harrah's, $12.5 million; Aurora City of Lights I & II, $12.5 million; and East St. Louis Casino Queen, $9.99 million.

Attendance at Players Riverboat dipped more than 11 percent in September but still averaged more than 5,000 admissions a day.

Missouri casino winnings

Casinos winnings were up in Missouri to $46.1 million, a 2 percent increase from September of a year ago but down from August winnings of $50 million.

Harrah's in North Kansas City again led Missouri casinos, winning $14.2 million, down from its August winnings of $15.9 million. Station Casino St. Charles won $11.9 million to rank second on the list.

Harrah's and Station Casino operate from two gambling boats at their locations.

Other Missouri casinos and winnings: Boyd Gaming's Sam's Town, Kansas City, $4.7 million; Admiral, downtown St. Louis, $5.4 million; Argosy's Casino, Riverside, $6.3 million; Casino Aztar, Caruthersville, $2.95 million; and St. Jo Frontier, St. Joseph, $1.7 million.

B. Ray Owen is business editor for the Southeast Missourian.