Unfortunatelly this is a simple matter of math. Hiring someone is costly, and there has to be a return for the time and money invested. As you get older, you ge

Unfortunatelly this is a simple matter of math. Hiring someone is costly, and there has to be a return for the time and money invested. As you get older, you get closer and closer to retiring, so the time you have to return the investment made by the company in you is just not enough to justify such investment. There's no easy answer. There are too much advantages (as mentioned in the comments: young people are more open to new ideas, easier to manipulate, easier to manage, willing to be paid less, while the older people's only advantage is experience, which may not really be an advantage if your experience is too biased to a single market, company or position). The more competition there is in the market for talents, the wider the gap is. That's not a vice, or inherently evil, that's just a fact of life: as we get older, we get less useful. We lose efficiency both physically and mentally - some more than others, but that happens to everyone. It's sad, revolting and definitely not fair, but I - personally - can't see a way around this that makes rational, not emotional, sense.