"Job applicants to ads with ageist language are on average 2.7 years younger than the applicants to the control ads. The median age for these ads was also 2.7 y

"Job applicants to ads with ageist language are on average 2.7 years younger than the applicants to the control ads. The median age for these ads was also 2.7 years younger, and the 75th percentile was 3.1 years younger. The share of applicants over 40 was lower by 9.4 percentage points" Gosh. That seems like an international emergency. One of their 3 template phrases was "You must be a digital native and have a background in social media" Which honestly seems like a great way for people to self select out of jobs that they really aren't going to want to do! I also question their choice of "retail sales" as a job that older workers want? They might be applying out of desperation, but isn't retail one of the quintessential "work there only until you can find something better" jobs? ( Not always of course, and lifestyle, work/life balance matters too, and of course I've gotten service from plenty of older workers, none of which negates the fact that dealing with the public all day can be particularly draining, and people who can, will often choose to do other work ) I've had discussions with a senior manager at a previous job who really wanted to get younger people in.. but it was an ERP software company, almost the definition of boring for a young person, if they even know what ERP is, uncool by almost any measure, and it was incredibly hard to get people under 30 to even apply. The median employee age was well over 40, and increasing. No one was getting pushed out, their staff retention was absolutely epic, almost no one stayed less than 5 years ( for good and bad reasons tbh ), but I really saw his point too? How much harder is it to get new, disruptive ideas when your new hires are all 40+ and "worse", many coming from customer sites, so already indirectly trained in the existing patterns of thought? Not dissing either the company or those employees either, a tech company with. 40+ year history is doing something right, and many of those employees were of course highly competent and dedicated. But not necessarily particularly innovative either.