In a world where population demographics is shifting to a surplus of older workers and a significant shortage of younger workers, what happens to age discrimination practices?
Bloomberg writes that age discrimination appears common in many fields including tech and finance:
It’s been estimated that about a quarter of all workers in developed countries will be over 55 by 2030. To ensure vacancies are filled in the future, labor experts argue, employers will need to reduce bias against this group.
Source: Bloomberg – Bloomberg (Paid subscription required to read full article)
As long as there was a plentiful supply of younger workers, employers could easily discriminate against older workers. Until the mid-1960s, less than half of U.S. adults had graduated from high school, giving rise to the term “dead wood” said to be occupying many jobs. This resulted in discrimination against older workers, a trend that continued to the present. This discrimination continues, especially in fast-changing fields like high tech, where things change so fast that having years of experience (in old stuff!) adds little value. Better to hire a new, shining young thing trained in the latest gizmos of the day!
How does these age discrimination practices change when we have a smaller young cohort?
Will this result in companies putting forth an effort to retrain and/or retrain older workers?
