"He will miss out on his pension and faces job-hunting now at age 52."
I don't understand how he will miss out on his pension.
After 28 years he must be vested!
Here's the thing. His pension, if he NEVER gets another job, won't be as big as it would have been, had he worked another 10 or 13 or 15 more years. But he WILL get that pension at the designated time.
I was in that position, in 1990, with no job, booted out of the house by second wife, with a resentful girl friend who was tired of me lying about her house, and I found myself with everything I owned piled in the back of an old blue Ford station wagon, headed down the road looking for credible employment. It wasn't too gainful, but it did lead back to a place where I could build on my prior experience, and extend it into a couple of promotions as well.
He will survive, in spite of his crappy outlook at the moment. Not only survive, but go on to the best and most productive years he has ever known. And this period of unemployment does teach you the skills you need to know in retirement.
Old age ain't for sissies.