Yes, it's very common to get rid of older people in many companies. They don't have to be that much older either. In my work, the saying is 'fifty and out'.
They want to get rid of you. Even if you're adaptable, can learn new technology and are happy having a younger person getting promoted over you. It's a sad fact, but it's again, money. A teenager can do the work, a kid out of school can do the work, who cares about the older 'experienced' guy. Older people with the company, their salary has crept up COLA by COLA a year, and they now get a higher salary than some kid does. Some companies, if your salary was a dollar more, they'd get you out.
Of course, a lot of folks sort of burn their own candle. There's another side to it. If a person's value is based on knowing a business process that should have been replaced 20 yrs ago, and nothing else, they're on a short rope. When the company modernizes they won't need that person, and a kid might be much more willing to learn the new process.
These guys gripe constantly that things 'are just not the same', the new management stinks, they hate their new boss, why can't things be like they were. Cooperate with a new software initiative? No way. The old software was fine. Terrified of change, they sort of unknowingly are easing themselves out the door. Read 'My Iceberg is Sinking'. People who can stick with the program handed down from above do a lot better. One gal informed a younger peer that she was 'sleeping her way to the top' when she got promoted over her, a 35 year veteran. But she was a 35 year veteran who wasn't learning new skills, was 'sand bagging' and making every new hire's life a misery. Guess how long she lasted. No, not fired. She quit in a fury when she stomped into management's office and said, 'either fire the new guy or I quit', and they said, 'Oh what a shame, you quit, here let us help you pack'.
People DO have to be realistic. Sitting on one's laurels and recalling past glories doesn't work either. A lot of older folks get really negative and complainy. The 'I'm just holding on til I retire, and I hate everything', that doesn't really work. And it's not really a fun way to live to have everything sour and bitter. Many years back a guy told me, 'I'm past that period where I'm excited about going to work'. Guess how long HE lasted. A bad attitude shows, and in today's market, a bad attitude means one way or another you're going to find yourself on the sidewalk with a cardboard box.
It is questionable whether the labor market NEEDS to be so competitive that THAT many people in the US can't get jobs because companies send jobs overseas. I don't think it needs to be THAT competitive.
That's sort of like saying you need a lot of new business, and every new customer that walks in the door, you shoot him. No, it really isn't that different from that. If one sector does bad it affects other sectors. We're all connected at the hip.
We can, if it continues like this, become a country that doesn't make anything, and most companies are basically just funnels with a few highly paid employees that point the goods manufactured in China to consumers who can't consume, ya know.
I also don't think extending unemployment benefits always and only makes companies hire less. I think some financial analysis would challenge that assumption. My own experience is that people are frantic to find work, and that collecting unemployment for months and months looks VERY VERY bad on their resume and can make future employers look down on them for YEARS after, and they are frantic to not have that on their record. You also have to pay taxes on it if I'm not mistaken. Additionally, it is not equal to what you'd earn, for a good many people it is a fraction of what they would earn, especially when they account for the taxes they have to pay on it.
And there are rewards for companies that outsource. That's why they do it. If they could save .0000004 cents on manufacturing one franispin by going abroad, they will. They can cook their requirements so that the foreign suppliers can meet them - on paper.
The only thing that will stop them is regulation, and the 'small government' people don't want 'more regulation', so logically speaking, they're stuck.
Keep in mind it isn't just to save money. It gets them out of a lot of head aches, they have more freedom and don't have to respect labor or environmental law. In China, a person has to accept whatever is handed to them, and if they complain, there is always someone else who needs their job.
They may be polluting the snot out of the third world, but it's 'someone else's fault' because 'someone else is doing it'. However, given the close relationship companies have with their outsourcers, it's really not 'someone else'.
For me, manufacturing is the worst problem. Those nasty screws I get from Sears are junk. They break when you screw them in and the heads strip. Even no-rust screws rust. Not that every American company always made perfect products, but it is frustrating and it is different.
Of course, that isn't the whole story. A lot of jobs can't be outsourced (waiters, waitresses, etc) but those jobs are down too, because people in other sectors are unemployed and not spending money in the service sector. The entire economy, all the jobs, are interlinked. If another sector is doing bad, it affects you.
That said, almost ANY job can and will be outsourced. Yes, even legal work, medical coding, and the well known call centers.
And companies aren't doing this to 'keep from going under', not generally. That's always the claim. But financial analysis doesn't always support that claim all that strongly.
One company I worked for, an employee asked in a town hall meeting if the company could divest out of South Africa because of the country's politics and civil rights issues (whether you agree with that issue or not isn't the point, please read on). The answer was, 'do you want us to commit financial suicide?' which is always the answer. The company was getting some cheap goods out of South Africa, which raised profits, which raised the top man's bonuses. If his bonus was down by 1% he would be squealing like a hog on ice.
Even though it's actually been shown that lean manufacturing, Six Sigma and other programs can improve manufacturing so much that it becomes a better deal than even the worst sweat shop in the third world.
To boot, companies that manufacture unique and precision products, that are going to kill someone if they're not made right, these guys HATE losing control over manufacturing processes. There is stuff we make in America where the 'manufacturing floor' looks like one of the Level 4 Clean Rooms at the Center for Disease Control. Either everyone in the company is constantly screaming over to China, which is expensive and burns people out, or they keep it here.
Why do other companies outsource? They are doing it to keep their profits up and maintain the high salaries at the top of the company. They COULD put in a manufacturing improvement program but that would 'take too long'. A year or two.
Look at how much top executive salaries have changed at the companies doing outsourcing. Not so much. The guys lower on the totem pole are the ones that are hurting, as usual. The top guys don't just have a salary - they have a 'golden parachute' that provides salary for up to 18 months (sometimes even longer) if they get let go.
Other tactics are to hire young kids from other countries. They'll bring them over here, pay their expenses, and then pay them half or a third of what experienced Americans would get. The kids have to suck it up or lose their green cards. The job isn't done as well? Who cares? Who will notice? Just slap correcting their work onto the plate of the more experienced guy, he won't mind, he's already doing the work of three guys (how do you think productivity is made to go up? Make guys work more hours, do more work).
There are very few companies that are doing serious long term thinking about their responsibility to the community and the country. Otherwise, the structure and the rules tends to create short term solutions that reward a handful of individuals.
And the only thing that would get a company to consider the community is a conscience, a culture and a tradition of doing so.
If you find a company that considers itself responsible to the community and keeps manufacturing or other outsourceable jobs local, hang on with both hands, be loyal, and help them to be successful. I found one, and I'm hangin' on no matter what.
