People are being booted out of their jobs at 50

While I'm hopeful that the balance falls on the side of Asgara's perspective and that demand for workers enables older persons to keep their jobs up until retirement, in high tech I have witnessed first hand the problem Lam describes in his opening paragraph. The young guns are *good*, they've grown up with the technology, they've had exposure to the most up-to-date technologies at university, they've got plenty of energy, and at least until they start a family (which a fair number either don't or wait till they're older) they have plenty of time to work long hours.It's a very tough combination to compete against. Oftentimes experience can make a big difference, but high tech is a fast moving field and technology often moves right out from under you. The poor COBOL programmers who held on till the last dregs of COBOL disappeared didn't find much demand for their services. Application programmers often find they've developed specialized skills over the years that don't generalize well for a new generation of application programs. For example, programmers of line oriented interfaces didn't exactly find the world beating a path to their doors as graphical interfaces became prominent. And later on, programmers of graphical interfaces found the need for their services diminish as many applications found they could more easily use browser interfaces. It isn't that such changes leave you unemployable, but it makes all your experience a lot less valuable.In the first half of my career I learned Fortran, Algol, Sail, PDP-8 assembler, PDP-11 assembler, Pascal, C, RT-11, RSX-11, DECSystem-10, DECSystem-20, VAX/VMS and emacs. In the second half of my career I've had to learn Verilog, VHDL, SDF, C++, HTML, JavaScript, Perl, SystemC, Unix and Linux, Windows, Interleaf, FrameMaker, a huge variety of miscellaneous unintuitive tools and interfaces and 967 different passwords. If I run as fast as I can I fall behind slower.Just like education has grade inflation, high tech has title inflation. When I first started the titles were (they were pretty much the same everywhere, though the specific nomenclature differed):

• engineer
• senior engineer
• principle engineer
• consulting engineer

Here's the nomenclature at my current company, and this is pretty standard today, though again the specific nomenclature varies:

• junior engineer
• member technical staff
• senior member technical staff
• member consulting staff
• senior member consulting staff
• architect
• senior architect
• fellow

Within a year or two out of college if you haven't already made it to member consulting staff then you're really screwing up. But like those of us who have parents or grandparents who lived through the depression and could never come to trust banks, those of us who lived through the downturn of the mid-90s and watched the ranks at senior member consulting staff and above decimated by layoffs to save money are very leary of being promoted too high, and while I've turned down two promotions over the last 10 years I've seen younger people promoted above me who have nothing technically over me other than that they're fearless, have more relevant training, work cheaper, and work longer hours.I like my job. I hope I keep it. One of the reasons I'm so busy lately is because competing with the young guns takes more than 40 hours a week. A lot more. How long can I keep this up? Till I'm 65? I sincerely doubt it.--Percy

There's a reason few can play professional sports much beyond age 30. There's a reason world chess champions come from the ranks of the under 40 crowd and that Nobel prizes are awarded primarily for the accomplishments of 20 and 30-year olds. Energy, both mental and physical, declines with age. The physiological and intellectual changes are well documented. Better health care can only slow the inevitable. A healthy 70-year old is not a just a 20-year old with wrinkles.Responding to this from Lam: Though I've reached the age where I receive solicitations from AARP (it feels like death stalking me), I'm also an investor. I want the companies I invest in to be cold-hearted slaves to the bottom line, not social welfare organizations.What's more, many workers are not professionals in corporations. As we push the retirement age back and increase the age when social security benefits fully kick in, is it really fair to ask plumbers and roofers and electricians to push back retirement from age 65 to 70 or whatever it finally becomes. Can anyone recall ever seeing a 65-year old roofer? How many sinks does anyone think a 65-year old can get under in a day?One thing I've found as I get older and continue to play competitive tennis is that injuries, both my own and those of my playing partners, increase with age. A number of those I used to play with in my 30's and 40's are now playing golf, and they were forced into it by recurring injuries. Eventually the rate of injury exceeds the rate of recovery and you're forced to take up something else. Just recently one friend has been forced to hit with two hands off both sides because or recurring arm injuries, and another is forced to stand in one place on the court and have people hit to him because of severe osteoarthritis. Neither can play competitively anymore, of course, and my time will likely come, too. I've already had one hip replaced.The point of this personal story and all the rest is that good health does not mean arresting the decline that comes with age. Look at a chart of maximum heart rate sometime. It's by age.--Percy

Rrhain, the examples of athletes and chess masters and Nobel prize winners were provided as evidence of decline with age. They weren't intended as examples of the level of performance necessary to retain your job. The greatest accomplishments are reserved for the young, because the inevitable decline that accompanies age makes performance at such high levels impossible. The same decline that keeps me from winning Wimbledon or Bobby Fisher from regaining the world championship or Nash from doing work that wins him another Nobel affects us all. The older we get, the less able we are to match the performance of younger people. You've not only missed the point, you're actually confusing two different points. If you go back to post 1 and read Lam's introductory post you'll see that this thread is about older workers being replaced with younger ones. It isn't that the 70 year old is expected to lift 300 pounds, it's that however much he's supposed to lift, someone younger can do it better and cheaper and all day long.Read the last paragraph of my Message 7. It'll give you a better idea of the point I was actually making. When I was just out of school I wondered why most of the other engineers were under 40. Now I'm on the other side of fence and I can see that the older you get the more likely you are to fall by the wayside. One day you're laid off and you find that no one's interested in hiring highly paid older workers when there are so many well-trained younger ones who will work for half as much (this is literally true) and you take a job selling cars, like the former Digital Equipment Corporation lifer who sold me my current car back in the days when, like you, I thought I'd never slow down, never see kids as competition, never worry about being unemployable and unable to support my family.--Percy

You're incredibly persistent with this misinterpretation. You're arguing against a point I'm not making. Ignore the examples. For some reason they're misleading you.The point is that everyone's performance level declines with age, and that older expensive workers can be easily replaced by younger, cheaper and better performing workers. Experience can make up the difference, but as I pointed out in previous posts, the fast moving high-tech world often leaves workers with experience that is no longer valued.Does this help you understand how I was using those examples? The examples were for people who doubt decline comes with age. That Nobel prizes are usually won for work done by people in their 20's and 30's is an example of the decline that comes with age. It is not intended of an example of the performance level necessary to retain a job.--Percy

I'm not going to research this, I don't have time now, but I don't think this is true. If the research says this is so then it's wrong. Wait till you're 50 yourself and see if you still believe this. Decline in memory begins by age 40 and probably earlier. Most people become aware of this because they experience increased difficulty remembering names, and they note an increase in what is usually termed absentmindedness. The ability to learn new things is definitely less by age 40 than in your 20s, the cognitive ability to solve problems declines, and short term memory declines. It is common for people to make greater and greater use of lists and other types of reminders as they grow older. And this is all accompanied by a decrease in both physical and mental energy.The evidence for this is all around us. More of the most significant accomplishments in almost any field are performed by the young than by any of the other older age groups. This would not be true if people in their 50s were really the equal of people in their 20s. Older people are not just the same as younger people except they like to spend more time at home in front of the TV.I'll use myself for another example. As you might guess from this website, I like to program. When I was in my 20s I could program around the clock. When I was in my 30s I could program 14 hours a day. When I was in my 40s I could program 10 hours a day. Now in my 50s I can program about 8 hours a day. The limits are due to mental fatigue. Do you think it's leveled off? I don't.When I was young I thought I would never slow down. Why would I? I was active all the time, I'd just stay active. I always worked energetically on projects, why should that ever change? But it does change, and there is nothing that can hold back the change. Whether the research shows it or not, the change is very real.Experience is a very big compensating factor. Older people make many fewer mistakes, and they've developed a large mental database of "things that don't work". But as I commented before, in some fields, and high tech is one them, rapid change can cause your experience to suddenly have little value, and then you're very vulnerable to the topic of this thread, replacement by younger, more energetic, better trained, much cheaper people.--Percy

The full article can be found at PERMANENT VACATION? 50 and Fired, but here are a few relevant excerpts: --Percy

If anything it understates it. You know what happens to doctors in private practice as they get older? Their practices dry up as their client list passes away and new patients feel more comfortable with younger doctors (not young doctors, just younger doctors). And you know what happens to doctors in group practices as they get older? If they find themselves out of a job, they have just as hard a time getting hired as older people in many other professions. Their original training becomes less and less relevant with the passage of time. Some keep up better than others, but most group practices would rather hire young hotshots just out of residency. Of course there's carryover when changing areas. But to stick with your NFL analogy, who do you think will make a better running back: the aging veteran cornerback, or the young stud running back just out of college. Now add to this that the veteran would make twice as much as the rookie.I don't understand how there can be any discussion on the matter. Age discrimination is real. And it's real because of the declining productivity that comes with age. Experience helps a great deal in making up the difference, but not forever.--PercyThis message has been edited by Percy, 05-10-2005 01:39 PM

And in my industry the figures are much higher. The overhead above salary for things like benefits, facilities infrastructure, computing infrastructure, general services and so forth is at least $100,000/employee. This has a fortunate dilutive effect, since the actual cost comparison for a $40,000 employee versus a $100,000 employee is $140,000 versus $200,000.By the way, I'm not complaining about age discrimination. I wish it didn't exist, I certainly wish I was younger, but it's a challenge I, and many others with me, have to face. We all slow down at different rates. While each individual is different, as a group the stereotype that older workers are less energetic, less flexible and less current in their skills is absolutely true. As time passes by we'll almost all eventually drop out of the work force, and along the way many of us will be forced to accept lower paying jobs, and this will be accompanied by declines in our living standards as governed by income and planning for retirement. It would be nice if companies continued to pay us what we used to be paid, but I don't see how they have any responsibility to do this.--Percy

Hi Schraf,I don't need to convince you the research you're describing is wrong. As the Rolling Stones said, time is on my side. Whether it's next year or a decade or two from now, the effects of aging, both physical and mental, will eventually accumulate to the point where they become apparent to you.Keep in mind that this thread is about age discrimination. My position is that there is a valid justification for age discrimination, that in general people's ability to perform, both mentally and physically, declines gradually with age. If research into cognition versus age doesn't indicate this decline then either something is wrong with the research, or the decline in mental ability is due to some mental aspect that the research isn't measuring.Perhaps it helps to more clearly characterize this decline in mental ability. It isn't related to a loss of mental skills. For example, I'm as good at math as I ever was. And I'm better at problem solving now in my areas of expertise because I can now draw upon years of experience.But my ability to learn new things has declined. Young people are much more adept at moving into newly opened technical areas than older people. One area where this effect is clearly seen at a young age is language learning. The ability to learn new languages declines dramatically and early with age. I'm sure the research confirms this, and it is declines in this and related kinds of mental ability that I'm talking about.--Percy

Hi Schraf,Like I said before, time is on my side. If you don't accept what I'm saying about the reality versus the research you're citing I only have to bide my time - you'll inevitably come over to my point of view. But I did want to correct one or two things. I'm not making any claims of amounts of decline by specific ages, and there are wide variations among individuals. Whenever the decline in mental ability begins, and I think that physiologically as measured by post-mortem inspection of the brain it begins to be apparent in at least some individuals in their 20's, it progresses gradually and inevitably. It affects learning more than anything else, but other aspects of mental function are also affected. Accumulated learning and experience are compensating factors. The impact of the declines on job performance varies widely according to required mental skills.This means that you have to balance where you say this: Against where Zhimbo says this: Research into health and nutrition and psychological issues faces difficult hurdles in reaching hard conclusions. And removing the subjective elements from considerations about obesity, for example, is much easier than for something with no physical component whatsoever like cognitive skills.All I'm saying is that age discrimination is not without justification because the changes that come with age are very real. To once again use myself as an example, as a high techie I consider myself one of the lucky ones. Most of the friends I graduated with were long ago pushed over the side and are no longer in high tech, and for the most part they've had to accept much lower paying jobs. Somehow or other I've managed to stay on board, and I'd like to think that it's because I've been able to maintain a high performance level. But even so, I've noticed a marked decline in mental function as measured by my ability to do my job, and especially as measured against the ability of the young guns just out of school who continue to get better and better.So getting back to your research, let's say I took whatever tests were given that yielded that graph you presented. I bet I'd peg the top level (right along with you and many other people here). It's probably a safe bet those tests can't measure anything about how well I might perform in my current job. And I'm sure the same is true about many other job categories.If I were a plumber or an electrician I would probably be claiming I haven't suffered any mental decline at all, because I do these things better now than I ever did, and I certainly don't notice any decline in any other aspect of my life outside my job. In fact, outside of my job I feel smarter than ever before. But if things had worked out differently and I ended up in a field not so mentally demanding such that I never noticed any decline, that would not mean it wasn't there. The challenge for the researchers is to find ways to objectively measure what we already know to be true.--Percy