There’s lots of skills with the over 50 crowd who have been laid off and still have a lot of good productive years left.
Thanks to health insurance requirements, if you get laid off over 40 these days you're pretty much out of the game for good - at least from large and mid-sized companies.
Without a complete rewrite of the tax laws to favor use of 1099 independent contractors (which will never happen because unions go ballistic every time it is hinted at) there isn't much hope for over 40's until after the Great Collapse is complete.