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Over half of older US workers are pushed out of longtime jobs before they retire

146 points by wyclif 8y ago

Someone 8y ago
The title makes it look as if the pushing out is due to age discrimination, but it isn’t. The discrimination is in the rehiring. You have to read about halfway down to learn that: “Older workers don’t lose their jobs any more frequently than younger ones,” said Princeton labor economist Henry Farber, “but when they do, they’re substantially less likely to be re-employed.”
BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 8y ago
The big lesson is that even with a degree, there's a >=50% chance you will be forced into a hostile labor market in your 50s. High schools and universities are all starry-eyed about the career prospects of a degree, but degrees and skills have a best before date in the labor market. Continuing in full-time employment is a coin flip past 50. Here in Canada the ProPublica data will be fuel for wrongful dismissal lawsuits - maybe even resulting in awards of half pay to retirement age. In IT, you really need to plan for a career that might terminate at 35. You win the lottery when your equity in a startup is enough to retire on. As a geek the tendency is to keep your head down developing code - and geeks tend to be low on networking skills. So you really do need to limit your coding hours and put x hours / week into networking and side projects.
grecy 8y ago
....which is yet another clear sign that selling the best years of your life in the hope of having some kind of liberty in the twilight years is not a sound strategy.
- EduardoBautista 8y ago
  I would like to know the alternative. Sounds as though you are suggesting that one should never work.
  - labster 8y ago
    Marry rich; you may have to make yourself more attractive first. Shortcut: be born rich.
  - grecy 8y ago
    Oh no, work if you want, but don't think your employment will be secure until you're ready to retire. Make sure you live a life and have a plan so that when you get fired, or when your retirement plan collapses, or when they raise the retirement age, or any one of 500 other very likely outcomes occur you can still live a good life.
    - throwaway287391 8y ago
      I don't think I understand your point. If you believe the headline and think you're more likely to get fired when you're 50+, isn't that a sign that you might have no choice but to "sell your best years" (presumably the <50 ones), if anything? > Make sure you live a life and have a plan so that when you get fired ... you can still live a good life. Well yeah, I think just about everyone would like to have both a great life and financial security. The problem is that those two goals can be at odds for some/most people.
    - throwaway98121 8y ago
      So that plan is save money in your post tax accounts (non retirement) and keep some insulated from the market fluctuations? No offense op, but if you have a clear idea, it’s better to communicate clearly. Why play riddles and not flat out state what you’re trying to state?
      - grecy 8y ago
        I don't like to tell people how to live. My plan is to live cheaply through my 20s, 30s and 40s, and put away money so that I can continue to do that forever, without really needing a lot of money because my wants and expenses are low.
        8y ago
sys_64738 8y ago
What I quickly figured about being older is that debt is your enemy. How do you service debt without a deep emergency fund and for how long? My rationale is to be debt free by 40.
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- m0zg 8y ago
  Even with zero debt it's expensive to live in the US. Consider a family of 2. Real estate taxes alone are $1k/mo. Health/dental insurance: $1.3k/mo (thanks, Obama), but really more like $1700/mo once you factor in the out of pocket costs. Utilities and gas: $600. Food $1k+ (can be way more than that if you eat out a lot or eat organic). Various other spending is another $1k/mo. Compared to all of this, the cost of gradually paying down mortgage or car, while not insignificant, is not a dominant factor.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    This is very much HN bubble thinking. I live in wealthiest county in a major metropolitan area and one of the 25 most affluent counties in the US and my property taxes plus insurance is about $5000 a year. No I’m not bragging, any software developer with 5-7 years of experience could easily afford to live here. If you’re paying $1000 a month on food for just two people, “you’re doing it wrong” and “organic food” is just a yuppie thing that has no proven health benefits and is largely just a marketing thing.
    - m0zg 8y ago
      $1k is not "organic" mostly, but it does buy you a good diet. Lots of veggies (expensive!), not a lot of carbs, that kind of thing. Organic would be $2k or so. If you think you're spending less on food, you probably don't watch how much you're actually spending. I thought I was spending less than $1k until I started actually tracking how much I spend. Turned out it was $1700-1800/mo before we cut down. This included eating out several times a week. Now we eat out once or twice a month. We were able to get our "food" bill to almost exactly $1k/mo, which is only like $33/day. It is mind blowing to me that some people have to live on like $2k/mo around here. Do an exercise for a couple of months, or better yet a whole year: record all your expenditures and classify them. I can guarantee the results will be eye opening.
anoncoward111 8y ago
At 25 years old I was laid off from Oracle so what prize do I win?
- projectileboy 8y ago
  I think the point of the article is that it may be significantly harder to get a new job once you’ve been laid off, if you’re over 50.
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75dvtwin 8y ago
What happens in other industrialized countries around this age, after a person gets laid off? Is it easy to get another job at the same pay (eg how long does it take on average, and what's the new pay) ? Are there differences between genders at this age bracket in terms of ability to find a job with similar pay without relocating ? What types of professional skills are making getting a job easier? Article just makes it sound that future for most of US workers around that age, is of a decline in everything (pay, satisfaction, ability to stay close with family, job security). Is this same in other developed nations?
- danieltillett 8y ago
  I can only speak for Australia, but once you are over 50 you are in basically the same boat as in the USA, possibly worse since we have a higher minimium wage and better conditions making older workers even less desirable. The best solution is to create your own business. The downside is while your boss is understanding your customers are not.
  - CoolGuySteve 8y ago
    In the US, you're not eligible for medicare until 65. So in other industrialized countries there's no chance of being bankrupted if you face unexpected medical expenses and/or high insurance premiums between when you stop working for whatever reason and when you're eligible for medicare. It's my suspicion that one of the causes for the rising suicide rate in the US is due to baby boomers who are now entering this period of despair where you're simultaneously forced out of work and unable to carry your medical expenses. In particular, health issues often prevent people from working and your health usually declines as you age.
    - 75dvtwin 8y ago
      my understanding, perhaps incorrect, that in US medical bill payments can negotiated, to be stretched through 10 or 20 years. So, in US -- unless a person cannot afford 100$ a month or so -- they are likely not going to get bankrupted by medical bills regardless of their size. Perhaps also they will have hard time getting credit/loans. And also, my understanding was, that a US medical provider cannot refuse service to a person without insurance or without a credit card. These above understandings are anecdotal.. so not sure if that's correct. From the responses I am sing that Australia, Italy at the age of 50 and after -- people have same problem finding work. It is saddening to see that there seems to be no way out besides trying to start consulting or other self-employment opportunities.
CydeWeys 8y ago
And this is why I'm saving up most of my salary, so that I can be financially independent well before anything like this happens to me. Fortunately I make a nice tech salary, so I can live a comfortable life in a world class city without having to sacrifice vacations while doing so. Most people don't have this option, unfortunately. Also, this particular paragraph is something: "Linda Norris, 62, of Nashua, New Hampshire, earned a similar amount doing engineering work for defense contractors before being laid off in late 2015. She spent much of 2016 campaigning for then-candidate Donald Trump and is convinced her fortunes will change now that he’s president. In the meantime, she hasn’t been able to find a permanent full-time job and said she has $25 to her name."
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- Applejinx 8y ago
  One concern I'd have is that if everybody has to save in order to be making even slightly rational choices, that's economic doom. You're supposed to be able to spend. I'm 50 and my own boss, and certainly will never be able to retire. I think I'm doing damn well to not be broke and homeless after more than a decade of entrepreneur-ing in the US. One of the things I do to survive is make sure to provide stuff for free-riders like you, but if everybody was determinedly refusing to spend I'd be really boned. SOMEONE has to spend money on goods and services and stuff.
  - CydeWeys 8y ago
    Wait, how am I a free-rider exactly, because I save up money while working so that I can retire?? I still spend money, just not most of it.
  - solidsnack9000 8y ago
    Yeah, that's the whole point of division of labor and specialization and all that -- we focus on one thing and trade for the other things. Without spending the system doesn't work anymore.
danieltillett 8y ago
Why is there no discussion in this article that this behaviour by companies is rational? As an aging dude I know my productivity and adapatibility is declining and I am not worth paying as much to employ as 10 years ago. Rather than trying to hold back the tide by government fiat, why not prepare people for an income path that peaks in your 40s and slowly declines with your mind and body.
- LorenPechtel 8y ago
  There's another factor here--it's easier to abuse and overwork younger people. That 20-something working a 60 hour week is more valuable than a 50-something who can't maintain that pace. They shouldn't be asking for the 60 hour week in the first place, though.
  - danieltillett 8y ago
    Yes this is one of the factors behind the differing productivity of different age groups, although it is not the whole picture. Those in their 30s and 40s will generally run rings around those in their 20s no matter how many hours the 20 somethings work.
- remarkEon 8y ago
  Because up until recently this wasn’t the social contract we’d made for each other. I understand, and largely agree with, your logic, however I’m left unconvinced that is the path we should put people on. Your obligations tend to increase with age, and telling someone that they only have ~20 years to make enough money to last the rest of their life sounds rather dystopian. It’ll accelerate what’s already become a rat race in the US job market.
  - danieltillett 8y ago
    Actually until very recently you had your family to fall back on or else you starved to death. When most work was hard physical labor there wasn't much choice in retiring in your 50s as by that point you we either dead or clapped out. I think it would be better to be upfront with everyone that employment after 50 is going to be non-existent or paid at a lower rate and let people adjust their spending to match. It would certainly be much better than lying to people that they can work until 65 with an ever increasing wage.
austincheney 8y ago
As I am becoming an older software developer I am finding the demands for my employment are ever increasing and competitive. The demands for my development in the open source space outside of work are ever increasing. Its nice to be wanted and not worry about finding employment, but these demands keep me from doing anything else even with my personal time. I wonder what it would be like to be extremely wealthy or poor and dictate my own path.
- chadcmulligan 8y ago
  I find this to. I'm not looking for work and I keep getting calls from people and agents from years ago much to my surprise. I'm over the magical 50. I think though the secret is to keep your skills up to date, which from friends and colleagues of the same era is not that common. Likewise I think keeping what I call a 'young' attitude - being open to new things, keep learning etc - is very important. (I know a lot of curmudgeons :-))
  - DrScump 8y ago
    I'm not looking for work and I keep getting calls from people and agents ... because of this unusually strong tech employment market. When this boom ends, the 40+ should expect to be the first cut. Again. Just like in 1992, 2001, 2008, ...
    - vram22 8y ago
      >When this boom ends, the 40+ should expect to be the first cut. Again. Just like in 1992, 2001, 2008, ... Whether the older or the younger ones get cut first can vary, based on various factors, and probably will vary in future too. In 2001 downturn (which was due to the dot-com bust and post 9/11), I've read that a lot of younger ones were cut first. That was reportedly because they had only one or so skill, e.g. Java (during the boom, cos. were hiring and sending to the US, people who had a few weeks of Java on their resume, they were that desperate for people), while older people often had a good mix of skills (e.g. some language, some DB, some OS, some libs, s/w engg. skills, etc., so it was higher VFM (Value For Money) to retain them), so were fired less and later. In the dot-com boom that just preceded the bust (read up on the details somewhere or ask those who know, those who don't know about it, the factors involved are too long to describe in a comment here), dotcos were flush with funds from VCs and even Wall Street types, and were throwing money at employees left and right. I've even heard that BMWs were on offer as a joining bonus (in the US, SF Bay Area). I myself (was in India) got some crazy high offers (e.g. had some years' experience in projects and with skills in a mix of in-demand technologies, did not consider myself experienced enough to be a CTO, but got an offer for that role from a Mumbai dotco for a giant sum), but did not take it seriously (although I'll admit I was tempted and considered it a bit) and did not go for it, thankfully, as it later turned out. A junior guy I knew casually around that time, quit his fairly good job to join one of those frothy (literally in a sense, in this case, called (no comment) freshlimesoda.com). I think the excesses on this front (as exemplified by that name and business plan - remember Yo (later), anyone?) were even more in India then, than they were in the US (from what I could gather). Conversely, in a previous (less-publicized bust), I was working as a Unix system engineer in a large national-level hardware+software company in India, and was quite junior. Soon after I joined, there was an industry "shakeout" (term used then) and several mid-level people were let go (both in India and the US, probably, in the industry as a whole). We juniors were mostly spared, though, except for the bottom of the barrel, who were sacked.
Spooky23 8y ago
I see this with salespeople all of the time. There are a million Willy Lomans out there, and the arc of their careers if you get to see it is sad and predictable. One guy who comes to mind was a high flyer for a big vendor, driving a Porsche, etc. 10 years later, he’s at some VAR. A few years later, some shitty company that gobbles up zombie legacy software. Last time I saw him he was at a gas station with his company Camry, peddling restaurant equipment.
Kyragem 8y ago
More people should choose a career in academia where you dont experience ageism.
apatters 8y ago
If you're currently an employee, start thinking by your 40s about how you could become your own boss. By 50, if you've played your cards right, you have a lot of connections, a lot of expertise, and you've become rather expensive to employ. So you do attract attention from the cost cutters wherever you work. But it also means that you might deliver more business value as a consultant than as a full-time employee anyway. I've seen people who got ahead of this trend, they planned for it, and made it work. They prepared for a long time and then they left. Instead of treading water in the same job for another decade, they semi-retired into consulting. You do it when you're prepared, you've done your homework, and you can name a couple of companies where you have contacts that would probably be interested in retaining you. Often, your first customer is your former employer. Because if you were doing an essential job, they probably won't be well prepared for it, and they'll want to re-hire you on a consulting basis to oversee the transition. You end up getting less total compensation from them, but you get paid at a higher rate per unit of your time. Then you string together a few other gigs. If you can't get as much work as you want you at least have some flexibility, maybe you end up spending the winters in a low cost country or something. The key is in the preparation and paying attention to the right details while you're still in corporate. If you do it right, it can actually help your interests stay aligned with your employer's throughout your entire career. If they have cost pressures your switch to consulting can be a win for them too. Like a lot of things in life, the key is to know when to quit.
- thatoneuser 8y ago
  Man you’re not wrong, but imho it’s a pretty bleak world where you have to have the competence as an independent consultant to survive the last 20ish years of your career. No doubt many of us can attain that, but I’d venture to say that the majority of people can’t. Whether mental defficiency, physical limitations, etc, there are a lot of curveballs in life that don’t set most people up to fit this role.
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    One option is to raise children that will grow up to support you in older age and live together to cut down on babysitting and housing costs. That’s the norm everywhere people can’t afford to live individually.
akudha 8y ago
There was another article about teachers today. It feels as though much of the problems in the U.S are self inflicted - how can a country that is home to best innovation on the planet, that attracts best brains from all over the world, that has insane amount of wealth, abundance of raw materials etc, get so wrong about basic things like teachers' pay, near zero protection for employees and so on? It is mind boggling - these problems just shouldn't exist in a country like U.S and still they do :(
- mmirate3 8y ago
  Because, for most of these problems ... from the point-of-view of anyone with enough resources to solve them, they are non-problems and/or not severe enough for the solution to be worth the cost. While that remains true, there will never be any rational reason to solve them.
- Bombthecat 8y ago
  Because those things show in decades, not years... "problem of the next generation, not mine"
- thatoneuser 8y ago
  I think those things we’re “wrong” about are a very key component to our wealth and innovation. We have a system that funnels talent and labor up through the chain to create more and more profit for the top. I mean think about our visa program - it’s literally designed to scrape the top % of talent from everywhere else in the world, while underpaying is pretty much guaranteed. I really don’t see these problems getting anything but worse as time goes on.
RickJWagner 8y ago
As a programmer in my 50s, this is of concern to me. But I think ProPublica is putting their thumb on the scales a bit. They add in fudge-factors for people who say they are retired, but ProPublica suspects were pushed out. They further add in some skew for those who say conditions deteriorated, but ProPublica assumes were really shown the door. This is just adding weight to their natural bias-- it's no way to actually learn anything. P.S. I lived for 19 years in South Dakota. I cannot image a basement that is overheated in December.

146 points by wyclif 8y ago

The title makes it look as if the pushing out is due to age discrimination, but it isn’t. The discrimination is in the rehiring. You have to read about halfway down to learn that: “Older workers don’t lose their jobs any more frequently than younger ones,” said Princeton labor economist Henry Farber, “but when they do, they’re substantially less likely to be re-employed.”

BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 8y ago

The big lesson is that even with a degree, there's a >=50% chance you will be forced into a hostile labor market in your 50s. High schools and universities are all starry-eyed about the career prospects of a degree, but degrees and skills have a best before date in the labor market. Continuing in full-time employment is a coin flip past 50. Here in Canada the ProPublica data will be fuel for wrongful dismissal lawsuits - maybe even resulting in awards of half pay to retirement age. In IT, you really need to plan for a career that might terminate at 35. You win the lottery when your equity in a startup is enough to retire on. As a geek the tendency is to keep your head down developing code - and geeks tend to be low on networking skills. So you really do need to limit your coding hours and put x hours / week into networking and side projects.

grecy 8y ago

....which is yet another clear sign that selling the best years of your life in the hope of having some kind of liberty in the twilight years is not a sound strategy.

EduardoBautista 8y ago
I would like to know the alternative. Sounds as though you are suggesting that one should never work.
- labster 8y ago
  Marry rich; you may have to make yourself more attractive first. Shortcut: be born rich.
- grecy 8y ago
  Oh no, work if you want, but don't think your employment will be secure until you're ready to retire. Make sure you live a life and have a plan so that when you get fired, or when your retirement plan collapses, or when they raise the retirement age, or any one of 500 other very likely outcomes occur you can still live a good life.
  - throwaway287391 8y ago
    I don't think I understand your point. If you believe the headline and think you're more likely to get fired when you're 50+, isn't that a sign that you might have no choice but to "sell your best years" (presumably the <50 ones), if anything? > Make sure you live a life and have a plan so that when you get fired ... you can still live a good life. Well yeah, I think just about everyone would like to have both a great life and financial security. The problem is that those two goals can be at odds for some/most people.
  - throwaway98121 8y ago
    So that plan is save money in your post tax accounts (non retirement) and keep some insulated from the market fluctuations? No offense op, but if you have a clear idea, it’s better to communicate clearly. Why play riddles and not flat out state what you’re trying to state?
    - grecy 8y ago
      I don't like to tell people how to live. My plan is to live cheaply through my 20s, 30s and 40s, and put away money so that I can continue to do that forever, without really needing a lot of money because my wants and expenses are low.
      - 8y ago

sys_64738 8y ago

What I quickly figured about being older is that debt is your enemy. How do you service debt without a deep emergency fund and for how long? My rationale is to be debt free by 40.

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m0zg 8y ago
Even with zero debt it's expensive to live in the US. Consider a family of 2. Real estate taxes alone are $1k/mo. Health/dental insurance: $1.3k/mo (thanks, Obama), but really more like $1700/mo once you factor in the out of pocket costs. Utilities and gas: $600. Food $1k+ (can be way more than that if you eat out a lot or eat organic). Various other spending is another $1k/mo. Compared to all of this, the cost of gradually paying down mortgage or car, while not insignificant, is not a dominant factor.
- scarface74 8y ago
  This is very much HN bubble thinking. I live in wealthiest county in a major metropolitan area and one of the 25 most affluent counties in the US and my property taxes plus insurance is about $5000 a year. No I’m not bragging, any software developer with 5-7 years of experience could easily afford to live here. If you’re paying $1000 a month on food for just two people, “you’re doing it wrong” and “organic food” is just a yuppie thing that has no proven health benefits and is largely just a marketing thing.
  - m0zg 8y ago
    $1k is not "organic" mostly, but it does buy you a good diet. Lots of veggies (expensive!), not a lot of carbs, that kind of thing. Organic would be $2k or so. If you think you're spending less on food, you probably don't watch how much you're actually spending. I thought I was spending less than $1k until I started actually tracking how much I spend. Turned out it was $1700-1800/mo before we cut down. This included eating out several times a week. Now we eat out once or twice a month. We were able to get our "food" bill to almost exactly $1k/mo, which is only like $33/day. It is mind blowing to me that some people have to live on like $2k/mo around here. Do an exercise for a couple of months, or better yet a whole year: record all your expenditures and classify them. I can guarantee the results will be eye opening.

anoncoward111 8y ago

At 25 years old I was laid off from Oracle so what prize do I win?

projectileboy 8y ago
I think the point of the article is that it may be significantly harder to get a new job once you’ve been laid off, if you’re over 50.

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75dvtwin 8y ago

What happens in other industrialized countries around this age, after a person gets laid off? Is it easy to get another job at the same pay (eg how long does it take on average, and what's the new pay) ? Are there differences between genders at this age bracket in terms of ability to find a job with similar pay without relocating ? What types of professional skills are making getting a job easier? Article just makes it sound that future for most of US workers around that age, is of a decline in everything (pay, satisfaction, ability to stay close with family, job security). Is this same in other developed nations?

danieltillett 8y ago
I can only speak for Australia, but once you are over 50 you are in basically the same boat as in the USA, possibly worse since we have a higher minimium wage and better conditions making older workers even less desirable. The best solution is to create your own business. The downside is while your boss is understanding your customers are not.
- CoolGuySteve 8y ago
  In the US, you're not eligible for medicare until 65. So in other industrialized countries there's no chance of being bankrupted if you face unexpected medical expenses and/or high insurance premiums between when you stop working for whatever reason and when you're eligible for medicare. It's my suspicion that one of the causes for the rising suicide rate in the US is due to baby boomers who are now entering this period of despair where you're simultaneously forced out of work and unable to carry your medical expenses. In particular, health issues often prevent people from working and your health usually declines as you age.
  - 75dvtwin 8y ago
    my understanding, perhaps incorrect, that in US medical bill payments can negotiated, to be stretched through 10 or 20 years. So, in US -- unless a person cannot afford 100$ a month or so -- they are likely not going to get bankrupted by medical bills regardless of their size. Perhaps also they will have hard time getting credit/loans. And also, my understanding was, that a US medical provider cannot refuse service to a person without insurance or without a credit card. These above understandings are anecdotal.. so not sure if that's correct. From the responses I am sing that Australia, Italy at the age of 50 and after -- people have same problem finding work. It is saddening to see that there seems to be no way out besides trying to start consulting or other self-employment opportunities.

CydeWeys 8y ago

And this is why I'm saving up most of my salary, so that I can be financially independent well before anything like this happens to me. Fortunately I make a nice tech salary, so I can live a comfortable life in a world class city without having to sacrifice vacations while doing so. Most people don't have this option, unfortunately. Also, this particular paragraph is something: "Linda Norris, 62, of Nashua, New Hampshire, earned a similar amount doing engineering work for defense contractors before being laid off in late 2015. She spent much of 2016 campaigning for then-candidate Donald Trump and is convinced her fortunes will change now that he’s president. In the meantime, she hasn’t been able to find a permanent full-time job and said she has $25 to her name."

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Applejinx 8y ago
One concern I'd have is that if everybody has to save in order to be making even slightly rational choices, that's economic doom. You're supposed to be able to spend. I'm 50 and my own boss, and certainly will never be able to retire. I think I'm doing damn well to not be broke and homeless after more than a decade of entrepreneur-ing in the US. One of the things I do to survive is make sure to provide stuff for free-riders like you, but if everybody was determinedly refusing to spend I'd be really boned. SOMEONE has to spend money on goods and services and stuff.
- CydeWeys 8y ago
  Wait, how am I a free-rider exactly, because I save up money while working so that I can retire?? I still spend money, just not most of it.
- solidsnack9000 8y ago
  Yeah, that's the whole point of division of labor and specialization and all that -- we focus on one thing and trade for the other things. Without spending the system doesn't work anymore.

danieltillett 8y ago

Why is there no discussion in this article that this behaviour by companies is rational? As an aging dude I know my productivity and adapatibility is declining and I am not worth paying as much to employ as 10 years ago. Rather than trying to hold back the tide by government fiat, why not prepare people for an income path that peaks in your 40s and slowly declines with your mind and body.

LorenPechtel 8y ago
There's another factor here--it's easier to abuse and overwork younger people. That 20-something working a 60 hour week is more valuable than a 50-something who can't maintain that pace. They shouldn't be asking for the 60 hour week in the first place, though.
- danieltillett 8y ago
  Yes this is one of the factors behind the differing productivity of different age groups, although it is not the whole picture. Those in their 30s and 40s will generally run rings around those in their 20s no matter how many hours the 20 somethings work.
remarkEon 8y ago
Because up until recently this wasn’t the social contract we’d made for each other. I understand, and largely agree with, your logic, however I’m left unconvinced that is the path we should put people on. Your obligations tend to increase with age, and telling someone that they only have ~20 years to make enough money to last the rest of their life sounds rather dystopian. It’ll accelerate what’s already become a rat race in the US job market.
- danieltillett 8y ago
  Actually until very recently you had your family to fall back on or else you starved to death. When most work was hard physical labor there wasn't much choice in retiring in your 50s as by that point you we either dead or clapped out. I think it would be better to be upfront with everyone that employment after 50 is going to be non-existent or paid at a lower rate and let people adjust their spending to match. It would certainly be much better than lying to people that they can work until 65 with an ever increasing wage.

austincheney 8y ago

As I am becoming an older software developer I am finding the demands for my employment are ever increasing and competitive. The demands for my development in the open source space outside of work are ever increasing. Its nice to be wanted and not worry about finding employment, but these demands keep me from doing anything else even with my personal time. I wonder what it would be like to be extremely wealthy or poor and dictate my own path.

chadcmulligan 8y ago
I find this to. I'm not looking for work and I keep getting calls from people and agents from years ago much to my surprise. I'm over the magical 50. I think though the secret is to keep your skills up to date, which from friends and colleagues of the same era is not that common. Likewise I think keeping what I call a 'young' attitude - being open to new things, keep learning etc - is very important. (I know a lot of curmudgeons :-))
- DrScump 8y ago
  I'm not looking for work and I keep getting calls from people and agents ... because of this unusually strong tech employment market. When this boom ends, the 40+ should expect to be the first cut. Again. Just like in 1992, 2001, 2008, ...
  - vram22 8y ago
    >When this boom ends, the 40+ should expect to be the first cut. Again. Just like in 1992, 2001, 2008, ... Whether the older or the younger ones get cut first can vary, based on various factors, and probably will vary in future too. In 2001 downturn (which was due to the dot-com bust and post 9/11), I've read that a lot of younger ones were cut first. That was reportedly because they had only one or so skill, e.g. Java (during the boom, cos. were hiring and sending to the US, people who had a few weeks of Java on their resume, they were that desperate for people), while older people often had a good mix of skills (e.g. some language, some DB, some OS, some libs, s/w engg. skills, etc., so it was higher VFM (Value For Money) to retain them), so were fired less and later. In the dot-com boom that just preceded the bust (read up on the details somewhere or ask those who know, those who don't know about it, the factors involved are too long to describe in a comment here), dotcos were flush with funds from VCs and even Wall Street types, and were throwing money at employees left and right. I've even heard that BMWs were on offer as a joining bonus (in the US, SF Bay Area). I myself (was in India) got some crazy high offers (e.g. had some years' experience in projects and with skills in a mix of in-demand technologies, did not consider myself experienced enough to be a CTO, but got an offer for that role from a Mumbai dotco for a giant sum), but did not take it seriously (although I'll admit I was tempted and considered it a bit) and did not go for it, thankfully, as it later turned out. A junior guy I knew casually around that time, quit his fairly good job to join one of those frothy (literally in a sense, in this case, called (no comment) freshlimesoda.com). I think the excesses on this front (as exemplified by that name and business plan - remember Yo (later), anyone?) were even more in India then, than they were in the US (from what I could gather). Conversely, in a previous (less-publicized bust), I was working as a Unix system engineer in a large national-level hardware+software company in India, and was quite junior. Soon after I joined, there was an industry "shakeout" (term used then) and several mid-level people were let go (both in India and the US, probably, in the industry as a whole). We juniors were mostly spared, though, except for the bottom of the barrel, who were sacked.

Spooky23 8y ago

I see this with salespeople all of the time. There are a million Willy Lomans out there, and the arc of their careers if you get to see it is sad and predictable. One guy who comes to mind was a high flyer for a big vendor, driving a Porsche, etc. 10 years later, he’s at some VAR. A few years later, some shitty company that gobbles up zombie legacy software. Last time I saw him he was at a gas station with his company Camry, peddling restaurant equipment.

Kyragem 8y ago

More people should choose a career in academia where you dont experience ageism.

apatters 8y ago

If you're currently an employee, start thinking by your 40s about how you could become your own boss. By 50, if you've played your cards right, you have a lot of connections, a lot of expertise, and you've become rather expensive to employ. So you do attract attention from the cost cutters wherever you work. But it also means that you might deliver more business value as a consultant than as a full-time employee anyway. I've seen people who got ahead of this trend, they planned for it, and made it work. They prepared for a long time and then they left. Instead of treading water in the same job for another decade, they semi-retired into consulting. You do it when you're prepared, you've done your homework, and you can name a couple of companies where you have contacts that would probably be interested in retaining you. Often, your first customer is your former employer. Because if you were doing an essential job, they probably won't be well prepared for it, and they'll want to re-hire you on a consulting basis to oversee the transition. You end up getting less total compensation from them, but you get paid at a higher rate per unit of your time. Then you string together a few other gigs. If you can't get as much work as you want you at least have some flexibility, maybe you end up spending the winters in a low cost country or something. The key is in the preparation and paying attention to the right details while you're still in corporate. If you do it right, it can actually help your interests stay aligned with your employer's throughout your entire career. If they have cost pressures your switch to consulting can be a win for them too. Like a lot of things in life, the key is to know when to quit.

thatoneuser 8y ago
Man you’re not wrong, but imho it’s a pretty bleak world where you have to have the competence as an independent consultant to survive the last 20ish years of your career. No doubt many of us can attain that, but I’d venture to say that the majority of people can’t. Whether mental defficiency, physical limitations, etc, there are a lot of curveballs in life that don’t set most people up to fit this role.
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  One option is to raise children that will grow up to support you in older age and live together to cut down on babysitting and housing costs. That’s the norm everywhere people can’t afford to live individually.

akudha 8y ago

There was another article about teachers today. It feels as though much of the problems in the U.S are self inflicted - how can a country that is home to best innovation on the planet, that attracts best brains from all over the world, that has insane amount of wealth, abundance of raw materials etc, get so wrong about basic things like teachers' pay, near zero protection for employees and so on? It is mind boggling - these problems just shouldn't exist in a country like U.S and still they do :(

mmirate3 8y ago
Because, for most of these problems ... from the point-of-view of anyone with enough resources to solve them, they are non-problems and/or not severe enough for the solution to be worth the cost. While that remains true, there will never be any rational reason to solve them.
Bombthecat 8y ago
Because those things show in decades, not years... "problem of the next generation, not mine"
thatoneuser 8y ago
I think those things we’re “wrong” about are a very key component to our wealth and innovation. We have a system that funnels talent and labor up through the chain to create more and more profit for the top. I mean think about our visa program - it’s literally designed to scrape the top % of talent from everywhere else in the world, while underpaying is pretty much guaranteed. I really don’t see these problems getting anything but worse as time goes on.

RickJWagner 8y ago

As a programmer in my 50s, this is of concern to me. But I think ProPublica is putting their thumb on the scales a bit. They add in fudge-factors for people who say they are retired, but ProPublica suspects were pushed out. They further add in some skew for those who say conditions deteriorated, but ProPublica assumes were really shown the door. This is just adding weight to their natural bias-- it's no way to actually learn anything. P.S. I lived for 19 years in South Dakota. I cannot image a basement that is overheated in December.