
Over half of older US workers are pushed out of longtime jobs before they retire - wyclif
https://www.propublica.org/article/older-workers-united-states-pushed-out-of-work-forced-retirement
======
apatters
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.

~~~
AndyMcConachie
I hate this attitude among Americans. Like there is some strategy you can play
that will make sure you won't get screwed over in life, and that if you do get
screwed over in life it's because your strategy was wrong.

It has so much more to do with luck than I think people like you are willing
to admit. Where is the compassion in your writing? This story is about people
losing their jobs simply because they're old and used up by a society that
doesn't give a shit. And here you are talking about strategies for success.
It's gross.

~~~
apatters
What you've done here is create multiple strawmen, attribute them to me, and
then rationalize this fictional version of me as a "typical American." It's
very insulting.

Nowhere did I say luck doesn't play a part. Nowhere did I say I lack
compassion for the people in the article. Nowhere did I say that I think
things are fine as they are.

The reality of the business world today is that employment is at-will. There's
nothing stopping employers doing the things described in this article. So I
offered up a way that people I know have managed to improve their career
outcomes. Having several consulting clients is often a lower-risk approach to
the later stages of your career than depending on one employer for all of your
income. This is a forum dedicated to entrepreneurship so I think my comments
are appropriate here.

~~~
bad-joke
> The reality of the business world today is that employment is at-will.
> There's nothing stopping employers doing the things described in this
> article. So I offered up a way that people I know have managed to improve
> their career outcomes.

Here's a way to improve career outcomes: roll back at-will employment laws and
give labor more leverage in negotiations with management.

------
Spooky23
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.

------
austincheney
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
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

      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, ...

~~~
chadcmulligan
> When this boom ends, the 40+ should expect to be the first cut. Again. Just
> like in 1992, 2001, 2008, ...

Again - didn't happen, did have to reduce my rate for a short time once or
twice. I used the opportunity to stuff my resume a bit.

I've known a few guys that have had tough times in downturns, but they've
usually had experience in stuff that was obsolete and haven't kept their
skills current. e.g. I knew a guy who was an oracle DBA for 30 years, the
writing has been on the wall for this for years, I got out of it a long time
before, but he was getting paid well and just kept his head in the sand, sure
enough one day it dried up.

It's not like your fifty and have no useful skills, but any one with no useful
skills regardless of age will find things tough in a downturn. If you're any
age and have good skills then you'll get a job.

What I'm trying to say it's not an age thing, its a relevant skills thing. If
you have entry level skills because all the stuff you've done is no longer
useful, then you'll be competing in a job market against graduates and yes,
you're going to have a bad time.

I've been an assembler programmer, a forth programmer, a progress programmer
etc and if I'd stuck to them blindly years ago then things would have been
bad. Now I'm a swift and C# programmer who does agile and things are good and
will be for the next few years, if things change then, change you must.
There's no point in arguing with it.

Indeed if you're fifty and have skills that are current plus years of industry
experience then I'd argue the opposite - if you come up against a new graduate
with the same experience _at the same price_ ,and you have all this other
experience on top then who'd say no?

~~~
ThrowMeDown01
To not repeat what I already wrote and fill the forum with double-posts I'll
just point to my comment here elsewhere:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18783191](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18783191)

What happens if "everyone" does it and now you compete not with a few but with
hundreds, thousands? Will you still do and feel so good? Does your suggestions
_scale_ if it is applied not just to a few? What makes you think you can just
multiply your particular personal situation by [insert any number here] and it
will still work?

~~~
chadcmulligan
I think having higher skilled people of all ages would remove this meme of
<age> you'll be unemployable. I don't see a down side to having a more
employable and educated work force, I do see a down side to the converse which
is being played out at the moment imho.

The attitude of 'if everyone does well, then it makes my life harder' I find
regrettable. Again, I suspect this is a minority view.

Edit: Imagine the situation where education is freely available, where people
have a life long love of learning. Where companies allow their employees to go
to classes of all sorts. Wouldn't that be a great world. The one we have now
is sort of the opposite. The strange part is this could all be done now, all
it takes is a political will. Damn commies I suppose.

------
danieltillett
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.

~~~
mark_l_watson
I agree. I am 67, my current job is managing a machine learning team. I don’t
have as much energy as I used to, but I still have strong curiosity and desire
to keep learning. I accepted my job that earns less than I used to earn
because I think it is fair. Off topic, but in the US, fixing the health care
for excessive profit system (this being unlike most other prosperous
countries) would go a long way to giving older workers, and everyone in
general, more flexibility to keep doing useful work.

~~~
vram22
I have a friend (not near retirement age, but he was thinking about it early)
who did his MS in CS in the US, worked a while there, came back to India,
after working for a while here, decide to leave again, but instead of going
back to the US, he got permanent residency in Australia. While talking with me
about it before he left, he said the main reason was health care cost in the
US.

------
akudha
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 :(

~~~
thatoneuser
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.

------
BXLE_1-1-BitIs1
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.

------
Someone
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.”_

------
grecy
....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
I would like to know the alternative. Sounds as though you are suggesting that
one should never work.

~~~
grecy
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.

~~~
throwaway98121
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
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.

~~~
imtringued
I've had this plan when I was 18 and now that I'm 22 I'm not so happy with it.
I've had a bit of luck and acquired a dirt cheap apartment this year so maybe
frugality will pay off but so far I feel like it's holding me back.

~~~
grecy
I've driven from AK to Argentina (2 years) and around Africa (2.5 years and
counting). Lived in the Yukon and went to Alaska all the time. I've
snowboarded multiple 100+ day seasons, been a kayak guide, hiking guide,
snowboard instructor and now I'm a freelance travel writer and photographer.

I've never owned a TV or a new car, never lived alone (always in a share
house) and I've never bought a phone, I just get old, old ones off friends.

It's working great for me.

------
sys_64738
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.

~~~
m0zg
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.

~~~
chrisbennet
Health insurance is the killer. It doubled last year (thanks to Trump not
reimbursing insurance companies). Even with insurance, one emergency room
visit could wipe you out due to 1 in 5 visits resulting in out-of-network
charges.

~~~
m0zg
>> Trump not reimbursing insurance companies

I think we're all "reimbursing" insurance companies quite enough, thank you
very much.

------
75dvtwin
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
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
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
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.

------
RickJWagner
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.

------
CydeWeys
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."

~~~
Applejinx
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.

~~~
solidsnack9000
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.

------
anoncoward111
At 25 years old I was laid off from Oracle so what prize do I win?

~~~
projectileboy
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.

