I own several businesses and I’m in my 20’s. What you call “ageism” is really, in many cases, a reflection of changes in the free market and technology.
I’d love to hire older workers. But the reality is:
1.) For every older person that applies with the requisite coding skills (html, javascript, et cetera), I get maybe fifty people 35 and under. Statistically, it’s much less probable based on the sheer number of applicants that I’m going to be hiring an older person for the better paying jobs in a technology based firm. That’s just a function of the numbers.
2.) Most of my employees and friends are part of what sociologists call the “buster” generation (29 and under). Two of my most brilliant coders, guys who have made me millions of dollars, are gay. I’ve known them forever and they’ve been together since they were 18 years old, so almost 10 years. As a general rule (although this is not always the case), younger people have no problem assimilating into the culture and working with a diverse group of colleagues. We provide them with the best technology, designer coffee, huge discounts to our other family of companies, on-site video games so they can take breaks and play for as long as they want, and flexible work hours. They just want people that get the job done, have fun, and have the opportunity to get rich. People of older generations tend to have a problem with the fact that no one cares these dudes are gay, or if I let one of the secretaries have pink hair. (It’s like they expect us to get offended and when we don’t, get angry - my grandmother thinks I’ve lost my mind but then she wonders why I was able to build a company that made as much profit 4 years out of college as she did in 25 years of 18 hour days. It’s not hard: Hire the best people. Period. If you hire the winners, they are competitive by nature and your company will prosper.) In other words, if I think that an older worker is going to have a problem with my gay employees, or my non-conformist employees, they aren’t getting a callback. For the office to function, the culture has to be enjoyable and no one should feel like they’re going to have to defend who they are when they show up in the morning.
I really don’t think the older generation has any idea how out of touch they are in terms of culture, business, and personal freedom. I mean, we had one CEO of a major vendor stop in a couple of years ago and he couldn’t believe we “wasted our time” playing video games - how on Earth were we successful? (Yet, if we had been spending the same length of time playing golf or drinking at a bar, he wouldn’t have thought twice about it. When I showed him the numbers that the video game industry dwarfs Hollywood in revenue, he was shocked.)
Welcome to FR.
If there was a older technical person who was over 50 who realizes that he needs to re-train himself to use newer technologies ( and then actually does that on his own, going to school to learn them for instance ) who applied to your company and was willing to take a significant pay cut from what he was used to simply to get out of unemployment and be a productive worker again, would you hire him ? ( Let’s say he doesn’t mind working with gays who play video games or girls with green hair ).
Whatever, take your gay friends and take a hike.
I see the exact same thing you describe in the company I work for and companies I contract with.
Welcome to FRee Republic.
Welcome aboard. I found your economic analysis instructive and informative.
As one of those older workers, it hits home that my job skills don't match what is most highly marketable today. I came of age in a world of words and letters, and I feel that I came to master them adroitly.
But we now live in a world of images and flash concepts. Limited information and intuitive response.
Heinlein described it in "The Door Into Summer"; "Sirrah, I am an alchemist. Hast need of such as me?"
I could probably work with you, but not as a producer. Perhaps as someone who rounded off the sharp edges of what gets produced.
But I don't feel that my abilities are entirely obsoleted. Words give way to images, it's true, but even images further yield to concepts and visions.
I own several businesses and I’m in my 20’s. What you call “ageism” is really, in many cases, a reflection of changes in the free market and technology.Finding talent that going to fit into an already existing niche *is* going to necessarily limit the field, and, unless that older talen has kept pace, well, just as a matter of the way selections get made they aren't likely to make the cut ...I’d love to hire older workers. But the reality is:
1.) For every older person that applies with the requisite coding skills (html, javascript, et cetera), I get maybe fifty people 35 and under. Statistically, it’s much less probable based on the sheer number of applicants that I’m going to be hiring an older person for the better paying jobs in a technology based firm. That’s just a function of the numbers.
Brings to mind an individual we hired a couple years back, resume looked good, he spoke the lingo (electical eng stuff involving RF et al) BUT he could not intergrate well into the organization and, after 6 mos or so we had to let go ... oh well.
BTW, thanks for your observations and welcome to FR; you make for interesting reading.