For a lot of young workers, it’s hard not to wonder when the day will come where employers start taking them seriously and stop taking advantage of them.
And while I don’t want to say that day will never come, it’s definitely worth noting that there are no shortage of older adults who find themselves asking the same questions.
Although there are many ways that people can take them for granted , it seems especially prevalent in employment settings.
And as sad as it is when someone tries to cheat them out of their pensions or when they’re put in a position where they can’t retire, it’s more common for a company to unofficially decide they’re retired whether they’re ready or not.
And it’s especially prevalent among older women, one of whom was recently devastated to hear that the day she had dreaded for three years had finally come.
On January 18, a 62-year-old Florida woman named Elektra tweeted out that she had just lost her job.
Apparently, the plan to find an excuse to fire her had been three years in the making. Although she didn’t specify how they did it, she pointed out that this was conducted in a way that covered all her former company’s bases.
She later corrected what we see in the tweet here to say that her replacement was actually 22 years old.
In her words, “It’s humiliating and hurtful. I was good at what I did. I just aged out.”
This prompted some users to suggest legal action, but another woman with her own experience in this situation said it was unlikely to be worth the time or the money.
As she said, “This isn’t anything new, happens to women all the time.”
And data from the Urban Institute seems to confirm this as women between the ages of 50 and 61 are 18% less likely to be hired than women between 25 and 34.
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Once those women turn 62, that number becomes more grim as they’re then considered 50% less likely.
And as others saw it, Elektra’s employers were likely operating on the belief that her knowledge base and her experience made her too expensive.
And while this person allowed that a younger employee’s knowledge of newer concepts may be a factor, she very much suspected that how little the company presumed they could pay the younger worker was the main motivation for this decision.
But as others pointed out, those companies are often more short-sighted than they realize when they cast older workers aside.
After all, many employees find that the longer they stay on with a company, the more tasks they’ll end up absorbing. And in some cases, those veteran employees will find themselves doing more for a company than even their bosses realize.
So it’s hardly unheard of for an employer who pulls a similar move to realize they actually need to hire multiple workers to replace that experienced one. Not so cheap all of the sudden, is it?
That’s a small comfort at best for those who are made to “retire” earlier than expected, but the most common response Elektra received was that she shouldn’t lose hope as some opportunities do remain for her.
And after one woman ran down a list of possibilities, Elektra updated her readers with some better news that a friend may be coming through with a job opportunity.
She also said that she teaches some online classes and that one of them will start in February while she waits to see how this other opportunity shakes out.
