Against the backdrop of a 9.1 percent unemployment rate here, 63-year-old Susan Ballinger landed a full-time job about a year ago in downtown Spokane. She credits training she received through the Spokane office of AARP's Senior Community Service Employment Program as key to helping her find work.

As is the case with many people today who are near or at retirement age, Ballinger says she needs to keep working to cover living expenses. Although she had a long career mainly in health insurance work, Ballinger unexpectedly found herself unemployed when her previous job was restructured in the fall of 2008.

"I had 43 years' experience in the business world, but I didn't have the latest up-to-date skills," she says. The AARP program placed her into a temporary, part-time subsidized job and into mainly computer classes through the Community Colleges of Spokane's Institute for Extended Learning.

In July 2010, Ballinger got hired permanently by Serenity Insurance, a Spokane-based broker for high-risk auto insurance in 47 states, mostly for clients who had a DUI conviction and need a proof-of-insurance document known as an SR-22.

In addition to the AARP senior employment office here that helped Ballinger, the area has at least two similar senior job programs. One is offered by Aging and Long Term Care of Eastern Washington and the other, in Coeur d'Alene, is administered by Experience Works, a nonprofit organization with offices across the country.

All three place low-income people ages 55 and older in temporary, part-time subsidized jobs at nonprofits or government offices to gain work experience. As they work about 18 hours a week at federal minimum wage, the participants get assistance from the programs to find permanent jobs, perhaps with resume or interviewing skills. Some also enroll in continuing education classes.

Each of these federally-funded programs has faced budget cuts within the past year, ranging from 25 percent to almost 50 percent, which have prompted recent or current enrollment freezes.

Program leaders for each, meanwhile, say their waiting lists grow, as requests for help from older residents have spiked due to the tough current economic times.

"There's been a surge of inquiries," says Donna Davis, an Experience Works participant assistant. Davis adds that Experience Works nationwide saw a 46 percent budget cut in March that closed some offices. "We're currently on an enrollment freeze and have a waiting list. This time last year we had around 130 participants. Due to cutbacks, our enrollment for North Idaho is down to 42 participants."

Aging and Long Term Care's federal funding for its Senior Employment Program fell nearly 40 percent, to $191,422, for the current fiscal year that began July 1, down from $311,632 in the prior year. The program is handling the cuts by reducing the number of hours it pays out per week for its participants in subsidized training positions, and freezing new enrollment.

"We currently have 24 people in our program, so we had to decrease people's hours until people find jobs," says Lynn Burkett, senior employment coordinator for Aging and Long Term Care. "Some are currently at 15 hours, and some host agencies have made up the difference."

At the AARP office, Spokane project director Steve Reiter estimates the program helped about 400 people in the fiscal year that ended June 30. It served a higher number than normal early on because of federal stimulus dollars, he says, and then its funding for subsidizing participants' wages got cut about 25 percent this fiscal year.

AARP's office saw its waiting list swell to more than 250 people, during an enrollment freeze from January to August of this calendar year, Reiter says, and it now is working with about 118 people.

"We are enrolling on a limited basis and will probably be able to enroll approximately 10 people per month," Reiter says. "We're looking at further cuts. For any federal program, it's the same thing."

Reiter, who has served as director for 20 years, says the recession and the high unemployment environment for people of all ages are having definite impacts on the program.

"The needs are like I've never seen before," he says. "The economy has created such a large need on behalf of mature workers, and all workers I'm sure, but I've seen it with the mature workers."

He says normally AARP helps place an average of seven participants into a permanent job each month, but with the tight job market, that number is down to about three people a month.

Its program participants come from a variety of situations, from people who are recently unemployed to those who've gone into retirement and found they can't afford to retire yet. Other participants include recently divorced women who haven't been in the workplace before, he says.

All of the programs have a low annual income requirement, at about $13,600 or less for an individual and about $18,300 or less for a couple. Enrollment in the programs can range from a few months to a maximum of four years.

With the recession, Burkett says she's also seen more people closer to age 55 enter the program.

"Before, we had more people in their 70s," she says. "We have way more people applying who are closer to 55, and people who are waiting to draw down Social Security."

Burkett says participants usually experience a professional employment change or a life event that creates a barrier to getting a new job. An example would be someone who's a primary caregiver for a relative and can't work full time, so they need a career change to find more flexible work, she says.

"We have seen some people who have been in the construction industry and they're not finding the work anymore, or people in banking and they're just not finding the jobs anymore," she adds.

Burkett says another factor that some people don't realize as they near retirement is that Social Security income usually isn't sufficient to cover living expenses.

She says an "Elder Economic Security Initiative" report last year found that seniors living alone in Spokane County needed $16,032 to $24,444 to cover basic annual living costs, and elder couples here needed $24,504 to $32,916.

That compares with an average Social Security benefit in Spokane County last year of $14,100 a year for a single person, making up 58 percent to 88 percent of estimated basic living expenses here. For an elder couple, the average annual Social Security benefit was almost $23,000, or 70 percent to 94 percent of basic living costs.

For AARP program participant Ballinger, she says that training boosted her self-esteem and her willingness to "cold call" for job inquiries. One of those calls connected her to Steve Baumann, Serenity Insurance's manager for marketing and customer service. Baumann says he has hired three people into the customer service department from AARP's program within the past year and a half.

Based at 930 W. Second Avenue, Serenity employs a total 32 people in sales, management, and customer service.

Although Baumann says he places job ads when he needs to fill a position, he also makes sure to check with the senior employment service because of the good referrals he gets from the program.

"They just need any kind of customer service experience, and we find that people who come from senior employment, they have lots of experience in different areas, but they also have the basis for working with people over the phone," Baumann says.

In addition to handling even the few heated phone calls well, Baumann adds that he's found that the senior workers he's hired have a strong work ethic.

"There's a difference between wanting a job and wanting to work," he says. "The mature worker, yes, they want the job, but they also want to work. They know what is required, and they don't get frustrated."

He says he'd quickly recommend AARP's program to other businesses seeking job candidates.

"They'll be highly surprised with the quality of people they get," he says.