Looking for documented successs stories of companies that hired older
workers, perhaps part time.

Hello Jim,

In fact, a superabundance of information concerning older workers, and
trends favorable to them, exists on the Web. What I offer you here is
only a small sampling of what?s out there. (By the way, the search
terms I used on Google included "hiring retired persons", "workers
over 60", "us labor trends", and "part-time older workers".)

As you would expect, organizations that advocate for seniors are an
excellent source of information, especially AARP in the United States.
 But I also found that there is a lot of interest in part-time
older/retired workers in the business community. This interest
probably reflects a universal desire to cut costs, as well as a
salutary shift away from ageist views of older workers.

You asked specifically about success stories.  A report made to the
U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging Forum in 1997 summarizes the
highly positive experience with older workers at two companies: Days
Inns of America, and B&Q, a British chain similar to Home Depot. The
report also summarizes results from previous studies of employer
attitudes towards older workers:
http://aging.senate.gov/events/f1mb.htm

As well, the report references a previous 1996  study, "Valuing Older
Workers", which maybe of interest to you.
http://www.cete.org/acve/docgen.asp?tbl=archive&ID=A029

Another general and excellent source of information for you should be
the website of Experience Works, ?a national, nonprofit organization
that provides training and employment services for mature workers.
Established in 1965 as Green Thumb, and renamed Experience Works in
2002, the organization reaches more than 125,000 mature individuals in
all 50 states and Puerto Rico each year.?
http://www.experienceworks.org/index.html   
The following page of the site  page gives useful facts and figures,
references and summaries:
http://www.experienceworks.org/em_ff.htm

Additional  information about trends favorable to older workers can be found at:
http://www.retirementliving.com/RLart46.html

By the way, low-paying jobs in service industries are not the only
opportunities becoming more available to older/retired workers. Even
the highly youth-oriented information technology field is seeing new
advantages in hiring older IT professionals:
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/career/article.php/3115621
Further confirmation of this high-tech trend, in a global context, can
be found at this site of the United Nations Industrial Development
Organization (UNIDO):
http://www.un.org/ageing/prkit/olderexperts.htm

I hope this gives you a good start on an important and interesting topic.
Scribe_ga

This is all good and informative, but what about we workers who are
not retired and not 65.  I am in my fifties and have been squeezed out
of my profession and can find nothing else I'm qualified for because
there is only one type of work on my resume.  I know many, many people
in the same situation.  We all feel descrimination against hiring us
is rampant and subtle.  Are there sites to help still viable workers
over 50 find work and how can we find what work/ industries are more
welcoming to workers over 50?