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Although the economy is technically in a recovery, unemployment remains high. And the Fed's August 9 decision to keep rates low through mid-2013 suggests that policymakers expect weak growth for the foreseeable future. What's happening to older workers in this never-ending malaise?

"Beloit, Wis. - Born when Ross Perot was warning about a giant sucking sound and Bill Clinton was apologizing for pain in his marriage, members of this fall's entering college class of 2014 have emerged as a post-email generation for whom the digital world is routine and technology is just too slow. Each August since 1998, Beloit College has released the Beloit College Mindset List. It provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college this fall. The creation of Beloit's Keefer Professor of the Humanities Tom McBride and former Public Affairs Director Ron Nief, it was originally created as a reminder to faculty to be aware of dated references, and quickly became a catalog of the rapidly changing worldview of each new generation. The Mindset List website at www.beloit.edu/mindset, the Mediasite webcast and its Facebook page receive more than 400,000 hits annually. The class of 2014 has never found Korean-made cars unusual on the Interstate and five hundred cable channels, of which they will watch a handful, have always been the norm. Since "digital" has always been in the cultural DNA, they've never written in cursive and with cell phones to tell them the time, there is no need for a wrist watch. Dirty Harry (who's that?) is to them a great Hollywood director. The America they have inherited is one of soaring American trade and budget deficits; Russia has presumably never aimed nukes at the United States and China has always posed an economic threat. Nonetheless, they plan to enjoy college. The males among them are likely to be a minority. They will be armed with iPhones and BlackBerries, on which making a phone call will be only one of many, many functions they will perform. They will now be awash with a computerized technology that will not distinguish information and knowledge. So it will be up to their professors to help them. A generation accustomed to instant access will need to acquire the patience of sch

While it might seem fun to work at a company where the average age is below thirty and everyone is on Facebook and Twitter, you're better off working with more seasoned colleagues, say experts. FINS readers agree. Of 654 respondents in FINS' informal online questionnaire Sign or Decline, 88% said they'd accept their dream job if their new coworkers would all be 20 years older than them.

"Can you teach a dinosaur to dance? More importantly, can you teach him to network in 21st Century style? I was skeptical. But George Langis, a veteran turnaround executive, dispelled doubts by learning new networking steps that may hasten his job hunt. He went from conventional handshake networking to creating a personal brand that would be easily marketable online. Though Mr. Langis still hesitates to plunge into "tweeting," his experience could benefit countless other older applicants with rusty job-hunting skills. "

Even before the financial crisis, many baby boomers hadn't saved enough for retirement. Then stocks plummeted. In 1998, the average 50-year-old who had been working for at least 10 years had a 401(k) balance of $85,000, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute. Factor in the recent market drop, and more than a decade later, that worker's 401(k) has grown to just $93,000. In short, we keep getting older, but our 401(k) balances, they stay the same.

Age discrimination in the workplace has long been a concern for the 55-and-older set. In this downturn, however, younger workers may have as much to fear as their more-mature colleagues.

Whether you know it or not, we Gen Yers have a competitive edge over older job seekers in the career search. We are less expensive to hire, we are more impressionable (not having already settled into one company culture or way of doing things), and we have grown up with ever-changing technology, having become fast learners as a result.

Internships-temporary positions that pay little or no salary-are typically designed for college students or recent graduates exploring potential career paths. But with unemployment at 9.5%, some older laid-off workers are taking on these stints to stay busy, gain new skills and expand their networks. In the meantime, they continue to job hunt and, in some cases, collect unemployment benefits.

I am looking for a full-time job that uses my writing, people and information-gathering talents from 25 years as a Los Angeles Times staff writer. My concern, validated by the coach at the retraining corporation, is that I am over 40. That coach actually told me to leave the dates of college attendance, etc., off my resume. My brother, president of a publicly-traded company, said this advice was nonsense, although he did say age is an issue (and he's older than I am).Can you address this issue of inferiority complex for those of us competing with candidates 20 years our junior? How do we address it? How can we compensate for the potential perception that we are burn-outs or tired when we might -- in my case -- just be bored because we know the job so well?

The truth is that many employers generally like older hires because they tend to be more reliable, conscientious and loyal. However, candidates over 50 have to overcome hiring managers' fears that they have one foot out the door. Your friends should de-emphasize their age by removing dates from their resumes and making subtle changes to their appearance to look younger. Most importantly, though, they should showcase their enthusiasm for the job and how motivated they are to achieve, which will make employers more likely to believe they're in it for the long-term.

While it might seem fun to work at a company where the average age is below thirty and everyone is on Facebook and Twitter, you're better off working with more seasoned colleagues, say experts. FINS readers agree. Of 654 respondents in FINS' informal online questionnaire Sign or Decline, 88% said they'd accept their dream job if their new coworkers would all be 20 years older than them. At some of the hottest employers, that's simply not possible. The median age of an employee at Facebook is 26, according to data from PayScale, a Seattle-based firm that gathers compensation data. Compare that with more traditional companies like IBM and Hewlett-Packard where the median age is 44, according to the same data.