Home Depot to Recruit Older Workers

Currently, workers 50 and older only compose about 15% of the company’s more than 300,000 workers.

Under the agreement, AARP will find and train the workers and then provide them with help applying for jobs at the stores. The Home Depot said it will work to accommodate the needed part-time schedules as well as varying skill levels of the workers, although they have stipulated that there will not be preferences given to older workers over other qualified applicants, the Associated Press reported.

The need for the agreement came from Home Depot’s predicted 35,000 job openings at 175 new stores during 2004, and its need for qualified employees.

The Home Depot and AARP program can also receive funding from the US Department of Labor’s Senior Community Service Employment Program, which allocates $75 million a year to help people over 55 and under the poverty level get training to update their skills, redo their resumes and learn job skills.