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Almost Half of Tech Workers Worry About Losing Their Jobs Because of Ageism, Says Survey (siliconbeat.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the worry-wart dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from SiliconBeat: More than 40 percent of tech workers worry about losing their jobs because of age, a new survey shows. Jobs site Indeed also found that 18 percent of those who work in the tech industry worry "all the time" about losing their jobs because of ageism. The release of the survey Thursday comes amid other news about diversity -- or lack thereof -- in tech workplaces. Often when we report about diversity issues, readers wonder about older workers. The Indeed survey offers insight into the age of the tech workforce: It's young. Indeed concluded from surveying more than 1,000 respondents in September that the tech workforce is composed of about 46 percent millennials, with 36 percent of respondents saying the average employee age at their company is 31 to 35, and 17 percent saying that the average worker age at their company is 20 to 30. What about Generation X and baby boomers? Twenty-seven percent of respondents said the average age of employees at their company is 36 to 40, while 26 percent of respondents said the workers at their companies are 40 and older.

13 of 291 comments (clear)

  1. What comes around goes around. by JoeCommodore · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What do you expect when you came in in the 90s and 00s and shunned the older workforce, that you would be able to be an older worker later on?

    --
    "Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
    1. Re:What comes around goes around. by murdocj · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Who are these mythical "older workforce" people that refused to stay current? I know exactly one guy like that. I sure have kept up, and I started in the 70's on batch FORTRAN. And the advantage I have is when everybody raves about some exciting new tech, I can use the good parts and recognize the parts that are either reinventing the wheel, or were discarded decades ago because they were a bad idea.

      This myth that older devs are universally hulking dinosaurs is just plain dumb. There are good older developers and bad ones, just like younger devs. And the idea that the younger ones have a leg up because they used the latest tech in college doesn't hold water. Tech is changing continuously. In the last few years I've gone from C++ to Ruby on Rails to .Net MVC to a single page client app in Typescript. The key is being able to learn. No one comes out of college knowing everything.

    2. Re:What comes around goes around. by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No one comes out of college knowing everything.

      Ya, but people see youngsters on TV shows like Mr. Robot and MacGyver who seemingly know everything and can do anything on/with a computer and think that an actual thing. But, it actually takes time to learn things and acquire skills and knowledge. Ditching older workers simply in favor of younger ones is extremely short-sighted. And as far as stamina and putting in long hours, even at 54, I can work my younger co-workers under the table - as a programmer and admin - but that's me; I've always been able to burn the candle at both ends and up the middle.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    3. Re:What comes around goes around. by rmdingler · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't think it's so much older employees refuse to stay current. It's a balance sheet decision.

      The drawbacks of older employees include higher pay and less patience to tolerate bullshit, occasionally uncompensated, overtime demands. There more likely to tell you how they really feel, which is sometimes viewed as insubordination instead of candor. You know, some of the same foul-tasting criteria employers outsource a youngster's job to on the infamous H1B program.

      There are indeed likely benefits to consider. Youthful employees are more easily distracted, less experienced, and decidedly more prone to underperformance at work due to self-abuse the previous night... haven't even learned to hold their liquor.

      --
      Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

      Ernest Hemingway

    4. Re:What comes around goes around. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes. New employees mean lower pay and an expectation that they will be more like Jello and less like clay. Management wants to "green" their workforce which means hiring more people wet behind the ears and letting go of more people that make a salary that reflects their value to the company. It seems it is always about the short-term gain and thus shareholder cheering as the labor costs are reduced. There seems to be no long-term math to show how much the customer suffers from this kind of decision thus it is repeated like an IT flavored version of "Groundhog Day"

    5. Re:What comes around goes around. by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Who are these mythical "older workforce" people that refused to stay current? I know exactly one guy like that. I sure have kept up, and I started in the 70's on batch FORTRAN.

      Exactly. After retirement, I was called back into work on an emergency hire to do all the things the smart new folks just out of college couldn't do. And it wasn't old school stuff.

      The young folk especially, fresh out of college, with ultra high self esteem, ready to move to management in a month because they knew the straight dope, and were going to change the world after righteously wresting it from teh cold dead hands of thos old folks who they were much better than.

      And then they found out that they didn't know half of what they did. And then it go weird. They started treating the older people like servants. A typical response would be to try to slough off work onto me when they didn't know how to do it. One young woman I caught pawning work off to me, and I caught her busy with her social media all day. You would thiing they understood how easy it is to find out what you are doing on teh intertoobz. Told her I assigned the work, and if she didn't know how she had to learn quickly. Fortunately or unfortunately, she took the Millenial exit eventually, quitting with no new job, and moving in with grandma. But this has been the case with most of them, coming in, expecting to turn the world upside down, than crashing and burning after learning that the world no longer revolved around them. GenX'ers only have the normal good employee to bad employee ratio. They were fine. To the point where I recommended 40 and up for hires.

      The real reason why any ageism exists is because the suits want to pay an entry level employee less money and create an artificial profit until you have to hire the olde fartes back.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    6. Re:What comes around goes around. by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No one comes out of college knowing everything.

      Ya, but people see youngsters on TV shows like Mr. Robot and MacGyver who seemingly know everything and can do anything on/with a computer and think that an actual thing.

      Oh gawd, the weird "children will teach the parents" BS. You see so much of this social engineering on television, even movies. The child is invariably more emotionally mature, and much smarter than the parent, espscially the father, and the whole attitude persists throughout their childhood and education. I have one adult child I'm working with right now who is trying to educate me on something he has 1 years experience with, and I have 15 now. Demanding to implement all the ideas I tried long ago when I didn't know any better. My problem is I want to step in, but my boss says let him fall on his ass and get a little humility. The boss is right, but dammit, Gromit!

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  2. Don't live stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Save as much as you can while you're young, when eating ramen and living in squalor is still cool. Then when you're older, worst case scenario is you lose your job and you're like, meh, didn't need it anyway. Best case scenario is you keep your job and glide into retirement driving expensive foreign cars and Teslas.

    1. Re:Don't live stupid by shaitand · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Seems unlikely when gen x is going to be unemployed for those 20 years.

      You are mistaken though, there is definitely no shortage of young people and immigrants, especially immigrants.

  3. To the 50% who aren't worrying... by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Give it a few more years... you will definitely start.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  4. The problem is avoiding management by mikec · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm 61, writing code, and having fun. My advice:

    First, find a company that lets you do what you want. In particular, find one that doesn't push you into management (unless that's what you really want). Many companies will push you in that direction, but unless you're really good at it, it's a dead end.

    Second, don't get stuck on the same project forever. Being the old fogey who knows everything about that important legacy system isn't a good place to be when the old system is finally retired. It isn't enough to "keep up with new technology". Knowing it and doing at are different things and are judged differently.

    Third, don't expect that your superior wisdom is enough. Be wise, but be productive, and help other people be productive.

  5. Lost my job at 51 by Snotnose · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Haven't even been able to get an interview since then. I've played all the tricks like shaving off the first 20 years experience from your resume, whatever. But when it comes to "when did you get a college degree" you can't lie, cuz the college is going to give the real year.

    Keep in mind, I'm not saying I interviewed and didn't get hired. I can't even get a fucking interview nowdays.

  6. Re: I'm 39 and already seriously concerned about t by Darinbob · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Mid 50s here, and I work in C and embedded systems. So it's hard to find qualified candidates for the jobs, plus I'm good at it, and get a lot of recruiter spam. So I'm not worried about ageism for me. There are people that definitely are dismissive of older workers but I haven't bumped into any for some time.

    People say old people don't keep up on the skills, but that will apply to everyone. The problem is not about age or skills, it's about cost. If you're 30 you're NOT old, but even if you know 50 programming language you're still going to be compared to the cheaper worker who only knows the one language that the company wants. Those are dumb companies to be sure, they value quantity over quality, so maybe you're better off not getting a job at those places.

    An even bigger concern than ageism, especially for those with moderate skills, is outsourced. No matter what your age in the US, they can find someone that costs less overseas. Not good workers mind you, but if they can hire 5 incompetent people for the price of one qualified person then many companies will do that. And there are countries where it is routine for the manager to lie our their asses about how awesome their workers are and how they can do anything you can possibly ask. Being young won't protect you there.