Age discrimination

[Robert Oak]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/209943_agebias31.html

Several weeks after being laid off last spring by Best Buy, the consumer electronics retailer, Lynette Steuck, a software project manager, showed up for a resume-polishing "outplacement session" of the sort commonly offered to employees recently shoved out the door.

As Steuck, 51, a divorced mother, surveyed the sparely furnished conference room, she said she was struck by something. "It was shocking," she recalled recently. "There were probably 25 to 30 people in the session. And there were only three or four people under the age of 40."

I'm posting this one on best buy because this is a seriously underreported story. IT has been discriminating against engineers
over 40 for a long time...and they can get away with it because technology changes basically every 5 years, so expertise in a particular skill has a shelf life of 5 years...although older engineers still have
superior skills overall usually because of overall experience.
(and older engineers have the skills too, staying up on the latest
is part of engineering).

Let's do the math: 6 years of education (Masters) 85k, 17 years total
of a career - layoff times (let's say 3 years total) 14 years.

hmmm....and this assumes someone graduates at age 23.

[ArmHayseed]

1. More to come

The more Republican judges elected/appointed the more often these cases will be lost in court.

A small wager that the employees were non-union.

[German-Lefty]

2. Programmers peak at about 7 years.

After that time, they start moving on to management and design. At least that's what I heard back in college. I don't want piss anyone off, but there are sometimes older IT people that have stopped learning years ago. I remember IBM a few years back let people go who insisted on not learning anything but fortran.

[Robert Oak]

3. that just isn't true anymore

what about researcher PHD's?

They often not only are up on the latest skills, they often have invented them...

yet they are canned.

[idlisambar]

4. Case-by-case

There is an element of truth to what you are saying, but working in software myself I know a lot of good programmers who have been at it a while. Some people get tired of the technical side and want to take a management track, but each individual is different. Such things can be evaluated on a person by person basis, there is really no rational for age discrimination other than to get rid of more expensive employees.

[rememberingGandhi]

5. expensive employees

"there is really no rationale for age discrimination other than to get rid of more expensive employees"

Is "getting rid of more expensive employees" a valid rationale?

[Gene Starwind]

6. Always unjustified.

There's never any justification for ageism, and especially on the official level of the corporatocracy. That's the end of my story.

[rememberingGandhi]

10. I agree that ageism has no place...

... I was trying to point out that simply cutting people off because they were "more expensive" is wrong too. Meaning to say, if a company fires people simply for being "too expensive", that company should be held accountable, even if the people fired are not older than those retained.

[idlisambar]

7. valid rational?

From the perspective of the bottom-line for the company, yes often it can be. From the perspective of societal welfare, no.

[T Bone]

15. the rationale is to get rid of employees before they retire with BENEFITs

That's the ticket. For the corporations. The people in those sessions were all 40-54. If they are vested and get to 55, they get a pension with MEDICAL BENEFITS. Couldn't have that now, could we?

[yella_dawg]

8. Haven't worked in 30 mos. Will turn 50 in June.

Last time I learned a new language, I was writing testable code in two weeks. Did this four times in the last six years. MS Computer Science, credentials out the wazoo. I can't even find jobs that call for my skills. The jobs I do find, I'm so overqualified for, I never get a response from the employer.

Anybody need a weapons systems / aircraft systems designer with tons of peripheral skills?

[Robert Oak]

9. if you've got a security clearance

try contract....since they pay no benies they often ignore
age (which is plain sick) but the security clearance for short term
contracts is very difficult to find for them.

[yella_dawg]

11. My clearance has expired

but most software shops will foot the bill for a renewal on a six month contract. Problem is, there just aren't any jobs calling for my skills in my area, and moving is financially out of the question. The Austin / San Antonio corridor was hot for aerospace in the early nineties, but the high tech stuff just vanished. Part of the late nineties consolidation of weapons makers, mostly. Even space stuff is hard to come by now, and all of it is European Space Agency contracts. Used to do a booming business in NASA contracts around here.

Hey George! Where the fuck is all the funding to send us to mars?? Oh yeah! That was just your ass talking. Just like everything else you say that isn't declaring war or cutting taxes on the rich.

[Robert Oak]

12. another suggestion

answer those many contractor headhunter ads in monster looking for a security clearance and take a temporary assignment ...sometimes
they will pay for a per diem, you keep your permanent residence in Austin but just living temporarily in the area of the contract.

You can write off all temporary living as part of your business expenses.

I have no idea if security jobs will allow telecommute. I don't have
any clearances.

[mhr]

14. Unemployed 59 Months Will Turn 48 In April I Feel Your Pain

As the big Dawg used to say.

Ex telecom worker here.

[area51]

13. age discrim.

One of the reasons cos. give for age discrimination is for those cos. actually still offering health bennies, older workers cost more to insure. Our insane healthcare-only-for-the-wealthy system in the U.S., w/its lack of universal healthcare, is keeping cos. from expanding due to insanely high healthcare costs. What dumb-fsck republinazis can't realize is that a healthier workforce is a more productive workforce, plus their precious nazi gated communities won't be able to keep out diseases.

---

"Prosperity is just around the corner." -- Herbert Hoover
"The economy has turned a corner." -- GW Bush

Herbert Hoover = GW Bush

Neither man cared about the Depression their economic policies created.