....which is yet another clear sign that selling the best years of your life in the hope of having some kind of liberty in the twilight years is not a sound strategy.
Oh no, work if you want, but don't think your employment will be secure until you're ready to retire.
Make sure you live a life and have a plan so that when you get fired, or when your retirement plan collapses, or when they raise the retirement age, or any one of 500 other very likely outcomes occur you can still live a good life.
I don't think I understand your point. If you believe the headline and think you're more likely to get fired when you're 50+, isn't that a sign that you might have no choice but to "sell your best years" (presumably the <50 ones), if anything?
> Make sure you live a life and have a plan so that when you get fired ... you can still live a good life.
Well yeah, I think just about everyone would like to have both a great life and financial security. The problem is that those two goals can be at odds for some/most people.
My plan is to live cheaply through my 20s, 30s and 40s, and put away money so that I can continue to do that forever, without really needing a lot of money because my wants and expenses are low.
I've had this plan when I was 18 and now that I'm 22 I'm not so happy with it. I've had a bit of luck and acquired a dirt cheap apartment this year so maybe frugality will pay off but so far I feel like it's holding me back.
I've driven from AK to Argentina (2 years) and around Africa (2.5 years and counting). Lived in the Yukon and went to Alaska all the time. I've snowboarded multiple 100+ day seasons, been a kayak guide, hiking guide, snowboard instructor and now I'm a freelance travel writer and photographer.
I've never owned a TV or a new car, never lived alone (always in a share house) and I've never bought a phone, I just get old, old ones off friends.
Can't speak for OP, but personally I decided that I would follow my dreams as best I could while I could, and despite not having many resources I had a good run. Now 40+ and facing worsening job prospects with no hope for retirement, but also without regret. I'm fine with going out early. Much better, IMO, than spending my youth contributing to my 401k all so I can see the world when I'm a decrepit old man!
I’ve lived on a tight budget, contributing to my 401k, liquid savings, and after tax savings while killing debt and taking at least 1 vacation a year.
IMO, you don’t have to take a feast or starve approach but find a balance. My vacations weren’t the kind of Hawaii getaways that people in Hollywood are probably accustomed to. Cheap food, low end hotel, etc but I got to travel and see new cultures.
I’m not posting this to say I figured out some genius financial insight, but anyone reading this who’s young or early in their career - for the love of god, do save money in your retirement account. Assuming there’s a company match, it’s essentially free money. Do pay back student loans unless you can discharge them. A ruined credit is going to close so many doors, from financing an auto purchase to home ownership and other things.
You will have to retire some day, and depending on the broken welfare system (at least in the US) to provide for all your needs is reckless.
By all means be frugal and live as debt-free as possible. But I think the issue raised by the article is that in today’s economy even “reasonable” people making rational decisions are screwed once they pass 40, age out of the workforce and/or get hit by a financial emergency like a health issue. There comes a point where the reckless decision is actually to postpone “living” until an imagined idyllic retirement that most likely will never materialize. But I’m one of those people who’d rather leave early than stay late.
Are we talking about a 'Logan's Run' scenario here?
Everybody should live well, while they are young, because they should just die as soon as they've aged out?
I see a lot of support for your position out there, but it's hard for me to be thrilled about it at 50. I do like that you intend to keep doing economic activity, as you're a potential customer so you could be keeping ME alive for a while. But I'd like to think your choice here doesn't simply doom you later.
For me the alternative is not chasing the highest dollar jobs and working excessive hours that leave much less timen for leisure and family. Instead I happily work in a position that pays 30% or 40% less than I could be making if I chased constant advancement. I've actively declined opportunities like that. I am still paid very well for what I do, work a 40 hour work week, and still work on fun and interesting projects. So I'm not deferring until retirement the time I would have to wait to enjoy.
I'm not saying everyone should do this, it's just the answer I came up with. I know people who go the other way and also seem happy (though some not too) so it comes down to personal introspection abd preference.
What I quickly figured about being older is that debt is your enemy. How do you service debt without a deep emergency fund and for how long? My rationale is to be debt free by 40.
Even with zero debt it's expensive to live in the US. Consider a family of 2. Real estate taxes alone are $1k/mo. Health/dental insurance: $1.3k/mo (thanks, Obama), but really more like $1700/mo once you factor in the out of pocket costs. Utilities and gas: $600. Food $1k+ (can be way more than that if you eat out a lot or eat organic). Various other spending is another $1k/mo. Compared to all of this, the cost of gradually paying down mortgage or car, while not insignificant, is not a dominant factor.
$1k / mo for real estate tax? Where do you live? South East here, and I pay maybe $1k / year. I am in walking distance of a nice little downtown. 1600 square foot house on a 1.5 acre lot. Utilities and gas is in the $300 / mo range, and that’s without any attempt to optimize. Food is around $800 / mo, almost all organic, but I’ve been thinking about cutting that price down using mrmoneymustache techniques.
Health insurance is nuts, though. I’ll grant you, and I have no hope that it’ll improve. I’m currently generously covered by my employer, but if I wasn’t, I’d look at medical tourism for anything serious. I’ve been thinking of expatriating to France or Spain for a variety of reasons, healthcare being one.
Real estate at 1k$/month is like a second mortgage and generally only occurs in the DC coast and north through NYC metro into NE. If you're paying that then your mortgage is likely 3x so whatever way you look at it your mortgage is still your largest outgoing until you own outright. Paying such is your choice from then on.
Healthcare is a separate animal and small potatoes if you can afford to pay 3k$/month mortgage as you'll have health coverage via employer.
Nope. Suburbs of Seattle. Mortgage was partially paid down (to obtain a lower APR) and refinanced. But I don't consider the principal balance on my mortgage as "expense". I consider it basically free money that I can keep in index funds and make money. Whereas the amount for healthcare that we pay for two reasonably healthy adults is just obscene IMO (and it goes up 20% in 2019).
So you’re living in one of the most expensive areas in the US and think that’s normal? You could easily move to a lower cost of living area and probably find a job that made it worth the move.
Sure I could move. But there's no well paying work there, so it'd be counterproductive. And of the places where there _is_ work, it is by far not the most expensive place to live. NYC or Bay Area are easily 1.5x of Seattle, and that's in addition to state taxes, which WA doesn't have.
There are plenty of places in the US where the “well paying jobs” vs cost of living makes sense - for most people it makes more sense than the west coast.
Health insurance is the killer. It doubled last year (thanks to Trump not reimbursing insurance companies). Even with insurance, one emergency room visit could wipe you out due to 1 in 5 visits resulting in out-of-network charges.
This is very much HN bubble thinking. I live in wealthiest county in a major metropolitan area and one of the 25 most affluent counties in the US and my property taxes plus insurance is about $5000 a year.
No I’m not bragging, any software developer with 5-7 years of experience could easily afford to live here.
If you’re paying $1000 a month on food for just two people, “you’re doing it wrong” and “organic food” is just a yuppie thing that has no proven health benefits and is largely just a marketing thing.
$1k is not "organic" mostly, but it does buy you a good diet. Lots of veggies (expensive!), not a lot of carbs, that kind of thing. Organic would be $2k or so. If you think you're spending less on food, you probably don't watch how much you're actually spending. I thought I was spending less than $1k until I started actually tracking how much I spend. Turned out it was $1700-1800/mo before we cut down. This included eating out several times a week. Now we eat out once or twice a month. We were able to get our "food" bill to almost exactly $1k/mo, which is only like $33/day. It is mind blowing to me that some people have to live on like $2k/mo around here.
Do an exercise for a couple of months, or better yet a whole year: record all your expenditures and classify them. I can guarantee the results will be eye opening.
Our budget for “Household” which goes into a separate account is $900 for the three people. That includes groceries and household supplies. It doesn’t include my “spending money” which includes breakfast (egg white patties, fresh cut Deli meat, low carb wraps) and lunch so that would be an extra $200 a month by myself and my wife probably spends an equal amount out of her “spending money”.
Our eating out at a restaurant is part of what we set aside for “date nights” which is probably another $150-$200 a month.
And then my son usually picks up something if he has to work.
But, I understand those are extravagancies that we could cut back on if we needed to. But my wife works and has a part time “working hobby”, and I spend time “leveling up” to increase my income.
$900 for three including supplies would not be doable in Seattle area without significantly degrading quality, I'm afraid. I'm sure it's doable in areas with lower cost of living though.
What happens in other industrialized countries around this age, after a person gets laid off?
Is it easy to get another job at the same pay (eg how long does it take on average, and what's the new pay) ?
Are there differences between genders at this age bracket in terms of ability to find a job with similar pay without relocating ?
What types of professional skills are making getting a job easier?
Article just makes it sound that future for most of US workers around that age, is of a decline in everything (pay, satisfaction, ability to stay close with family, job security). Is this same in other developed nations?
I can only speak for Australia, but once you are over 50 you are in basically the same boat as in the USA, possibly worse since we have a higher minimium wage and better conditions making older workers even less desirable.
The best solution is to create your own business. The downside is while your boss is understanding your customers are not.
In the US, you're not eligible for medicare until 65. So in other industrialized countries there's no chance of being bankrupted if you face unexpected medical expenses and/or high insurance premiums between when you stop working for whatever reason and when you're eligible for medicare.
It's my suspicion that one of the causes for the rising suicide rate in the US is due to baby boomers who are now entering this period of despair where you're simultaneously forced out of work and unable to carry your medical expenses. In particular, health issues often prevent people from working and your health usually declines as you age.
Yes the US health care system leaves a lot to be desired. I know as an Australian that if I get ill that I won't be bankrupted even if I am out of a job at the time.
While on this topic health care costs are one of the major driving factors for companies wanting to get rid of older workers.
my understanding, perhaps incorrect, that in US medical bill payments can negotiated, to be stretched through 10 or 20 years.
So, in US -- unless a person cannot afford 100$ a month or so -- they are likely not going to get bankrupted by medical bills regardless of their size. Perhaps also they will have hard time getting credit/loans.
And also, my understanding was, that a US medical provider cannot refuse service to a person without insurance or without a credit card.
These above understandings are anecdotal.. so not sure if that's correct.
From the responses I am sing that Australia, Italy at the age of 50 and after -- people have same problem finding work.
It is saddening to see that there seems to be no way out besides trying to start consulting or other self-employment opportunities.
Same here in Italy. You lose your job after 50 and it's extremely hard to find another position, but still your expected to work until late sixties to earn retirement.
This is increasingly hard also because since youth unemployment is super high the government insists into applying huge incentives to hire under-30s (you basically get them tax free and taxes here are lots)
So doesn't matter much what skill you carry because the competition is uneven and places that are growing enough to justify hiring skilled worker into management or leadership positions are exceedingly rare. (a mix of recessive economy, family run business that don't hire outsiders, unavailability of credit for new business)
And this is why I'm saving up most of my salary, so that I can be financially independent well before anything like this happens to me. Fortunately I make a nice tech salary, so I can live a comfortable life in a world class city without having to sacrifice vacations while doing so. Most people don't have this option, unfortunately.
Also, this particular paragraph is something:
"Linda Norris, 62, of Nashua, New Hampshire, earned a similar amount doing engineering work for defense contractors before being laid off in late 2015. She spent much of 2016 campaigning for then-candidate Donald Trump and is convinced her fortunes will change now that he’s president. In the meantime, she hasn’t been able to find a permanent full-time job and said she has $25 to her name."
One concern I'd have is that if everybody has to save in order to be making even slightly rational choices, that's economic doom. You're supposed to be able to spend.
I'm 50 and my own boss, and certainly will never be able to retire. I think I'm doing damn well to not be broke and homeless after more than a decade of entrepreneur-ing in the US. One of the things I do to survive is make sure to provide stuff for free-riders like you, but if everybody was determinedly refusing to spend I'd be really boned. SOMEONE has to spend money on goods and services and stuff.
Yeah, that's the whole point of division of labor and specialization and all that -- we focus on one thing and trade for the other things. Without spending the system doesn't work anymore.
Why is there no discussion in this article that this behaviour by companies is rational? As an aging dude I know my productivity and adapatibility is declining and I am not worth paying as much to employ as 10 years ago.
Rather than trying to hold back the tide by government fiat, why not prepare people for an income path that peaks in your 40s and slowly declines with your mind and body.
Because up until recently this wasn’t the social contract we’d made for each other. I understand, and largely agree with, your logic, however I’m left unconvinced that is the path we should put people on.
Your obligations tend to increase with age, and telling someone that they only have ~20 years to make enough money to last the rest of their life sounds rather dystopian. It’ll accelerate what’s already become a rat race in the US job market.
Actually until very recently you had your family to fall back on or else you starved to death. When most work was hard physical labor there wasn't much choice in retiring in your 50s as by that point you we either dead or clapped out.
I think it would be better to be upfront with everyone that employment after 50 is going to be non-existent or paid at a lower rate and let people adjust their spending to match. It would certainly be much better than lying to people that they can work until 65 with an ever increasing wage.
Well maybe people are paid pretty close to what they are actually worth already in their 30s and 40s and the problem is their spending doesn't match their income over their lifetime.
If you know you are going to be facing a declining or no income from your 50s onwards you might save more and spend less when you are younger.
Seriously that's your solution? There are load of people that get by month to month and aren't doing exactly a lavish existence already to be able to cut back spending.
What you going to tell them, "though shit now go be homeless somewhere out of sight?"
Well maybe people are paid pretty close to what they are actually worth already in their 30s and 40s and the problem is their spending doesn't match their income over their lifetime.
In this scenario, poor people are simply paid death wages, regardless of the reason for their low-paying job.
Well maybe people are paid pretty close to what they are actually worth already in their 30s and 40s and the problem is their spending doesn't match their income over their lifetime.
This could be true for a small number of people; but when we look at the population as a whole, spending has to be balanced by productivity. People can't spend money on goods and services that aren't being produced. If there is excess productivity that isn't matched by wages -- if people are consistently able to consume more than they earn -- we have to ask where that extra productivity is coming from.
Across the population as a whole people in their 30s and 40s saving more and spending it later will be neutral.
I think most of would prefer to live a less luxurious lifestyle in our 30s and 40s if it meant we weren't homeless and unemployable in our 50s and 60s.
As an aging dude I know my productivity and adapatibility is declining and I am not worth paying as much to employ as 10 years ago.
Sorry, but that’s nothing to do with your age, that’s on you. The rest of us leverage experience to work smarter not harder. The ageism we face is prejudice and bigotry, not a rational reaction.
No it is purely ageing. I am very lucky to start from a high base, but I am still not as good today as I was 10 years ago.
I have leveraged my skill and experience so I earn far more today than I did 10 years ago, but being honest with myself I know I am past my productivity peak. I wish it was otherwise as there is nothing good about getting older.
No it is purely ageing. I am very lucky to start from a high base, but I am still not as good today as I was 10 years ago
Well, I am better that I was 10 years ago, and I look around me and see experienced guys are vastly more productive, since the industry is cyclical and we have seen it all before.
I’m 45 and I can’t crank out code with the focus I had when I was younger. I also have a lot more on my plate - wife, kid, trying to stay healthy, etc.
But, I definitely work smarter and have that breadth of knowledge to know how to leverage preexisting technology, use managed services and outsource the “undifferentiated heavy lifting” to outside vendors.
This hasn't been the case for me so far. I don't know how old you are, but I'm 50 years old and don't feel I'm winding down.
If anything, I feel more focused. In fact, I'm often frustrated with the younger crowd for wasting time at work playing video games and grooming their My Little Pony dolls.
I agree. I am 67, my current job is managing a machine learning team. I don’t have as much energy as I used to, but I still have strong curiosity and desire to keep learning. I accepted my job that earns less than I used to earn because I think it is fair. Off topic, but in the US, fixing the health care for excessive profit system (this being unlike most other prosperous countries) would go a long way to giving older workers, and everyone in general, more flexibility to keep doing useful work.
I have a friend (not near retirement age, but he was thinking about it early) who did his MS in CS in the US, worked a while there, came back to India, after working for a while here, decide to leave again, but instead of going back to the US, he got permanent residency in Australia. While talking with me about it before he left, he said the main reason was health care cost in the US.
The same for me - if anything I am more interested in everything now and I am still learning totally new fields.
I think the problems with The US healthcare system is more than just excessive profits - its extreme complexity and the sheer arbitrariness are bigger problems. Add in a system where you have to be employed to have coverage and you would be hard presssed to design a worse system if you tried.
>Rather than trying to hold back the tide by government fiat, why not prepare people for an income path that peaks in your 40s and slowly declines with your mind and body.
Why not just dispense with that altogether, and just execute anybody over 65 that doesn't have spare money? They wont be a burden to society anymore, and we could even make them something useful like some kind of meat or leather goods. The primitives tribes that just left them in the jungle to die, or threw them to the woods, had it right.
>The primitives tribes that just left them in the jungle to die, or threw them to the woods, had it right.
There is actually a community in India (so I've read - not sure if true) that does that - the Todas. They leave (or used to leave) their elderly in large urns once they are unable to work and help themselves. Been to Ooty (in the Nilgiris, a mountain range in South India), and seen some of them when I was a kid.
This is why we need to prepare people be keep them employed rather than pretend aging doesn't happen and throw them on the scrap heap when they hit 50.
Prevailing wages have adjusted over time with inflation, but not to a reality where people over fifty are eased out just because they can be. What would wages be like, if everyone acknowledged that you could work until 49 and that's it? Companies would pay quite a lot more for younger talent than they do now. Employees are stuck with pricing that evolved under the old model of lifetime employment, while employers are operating under the new model of at-will employment.
Nearly every older person I've worked with has an increased value due to their long experience. If there's a degradation of other skills, it's more than made up for. The older folks I've seen where this does not apply don't appear to have ever been all that great a worker.
There's another factor here--it's easier to abuse and overwork younger people. That 20-something working a 60 hour week is more valuable than a 50-something who can't maintain that pace. They shouldn't be asking for the 60 hour week in the first place, though.
Yes this is one of the factors behind the differing productivity of different age groups, although it is not the whole picture. Those in their 30s and 40s will generally run rings around those in their 20s no matter how many hours the 20 somethings work.
As I am becoming an older software developer I am finding the demands for my employment are ever increasing and competitive. The demands for my development in the open source space outside of work are ever increasing.
Its nice to be wanted and not worry about finding employment, but these demands keep me from doing anything else even with my personal time. I wonder what it would be like to be extremely wealthy or poor and dictate my own path.
I find this to. I'm not looking for work and I keep getting calls from people and agents from years ago much to my surprise. I'm over the magical 50.
I think though the secret is to keep your skills up to date, which from friends and colleagues of the same era is not that common. Likewise I think keeping what I call a 'young' attitude - being open to new things, keep learning etc - is very important. (I know a lot of curmudgeons :-))
This isn't what happens in my personal experience.
Either there are cuts to meet cost expectations, which kills high paid management first, or there are cuts by quota. When they come by quota its the people perceived as providing the least value, which is not always connected with work ethic. People who manage necessary legacy systems have greater value than a hard working easily replaceable young guy.
> When this boom ends, the 40+ should expect to be the first cut. Again. Just like in 1992, 2001, 2008, ...
Again - didn't happen, did have to reduce my rate for a short time once or twice. I used the opportunity to stuff my resume a bit.
I've known a few guys that have had tough times in downturns, but they've usually had experience in stuff that was obsolete and haven't kept their skills current. e.g. I knew a guy who was an oracle DBA for 30 years, the writing has been on the wall for this for years, I got out of it a long time before, but he was getting paid well and just kept his head in the sand, sure enough one day it dried up.
It's not like your fifty and have no useful skills, but any one with no useful skills regardless of age will find things tough in a downturn. If you're any age and have good skills then you'll get a job.
What I'm trying to say it's not an age thing, its a relevant skills thing. If you have entry level skills because all the stuff you've done is no longer useful, then you'll be competing in a job market against graduates and yes, you're going to have a bad time.
I've been an assembler programmer, a forth programmer, a progress programmer etc and if I'd stuck to them blindly years ago then things would have been bad. Now I'm a swift and C# programmer who does agile and things are good and will be for the next few years, if things change then, change you must. There's no point in arguing with it.
Indeed if you're fifty and have skills that are current plus years of industry experience then I'd argue the opposite - if you come up against a new graduate with the same experience at the same price,and you have all this other experience on top then who'd say no?
What happens if "everyone" does it and now you compete not with a few but with hundreds, thousands? Will you still do and feel so good? Does your suggestions scale if it is applied not just to a few? What makes you think you can just multiply your particular personal situation by [insert any number here] and it will still work?
I think having higher skilled people of all ages would remove this meme of <age> you'll be unemployable. I don't see a down side to having a more employable and educated work force, I do see a down side to the converse which is being played out at the moment imho.
The attitude of 'if everyone does well, then it makes my life harder' I find regrettable. Again, I suspect this is a minority view.
Edit: Imagine the situation where education is freely available, where people have a life long love of learning. Where companies allow their employees to go to classes of all sorts. Wouldn't that be a great world. The one we have now is sort of the opposite. The strange part is this could all be done now, all it takes is a political will. Damn commies I suppose.
>When this boom ends, the 40+ should expect to be the first cut. Again. Just like in 1992, 2001, 2008, ...
Whether the older or the younger ones get cut first can vary, based on various factors, and probably will vary in future too.
In 2001 downturn (which was due to the dot-com bust and post 9/11), I've read that a lot of younger ones were cut first. That was reportedly because they had only one or so skill, e.g. Java (during the boom, cos. were hiring and sending to the US, people who had a few weeks of Java on their resume, they were that desperate for people), while older people often had a good mix of skills (e.g. some language, some DB, some OS, some libs, s/w engg. skills, etc., so it was higher VFM (Value For Money) to retain them), so were fired less and later. In the dot-com boom that just preceded the bust (read up on the details somewhere or ask those who know, those who don't know about it, the factors involved are too long to describe in a comment here), dotcos were flush with funds from VCs and even Wall Street types, and were throwing money at employees left and right. I've even heard that BMWs were on offer as a joining bonus (in the US, SF Bay Area). I myself (was in India) got some crazy high offers (e.g. had some years' experience in projects and with skills in a mix of in-demand technologies, did not consider myself experienced enough to be a CTO, but got an offer for that role from a Mumbai dotco for a giant sum), but did not take it seriously (although I'll admit I was tempted and considered it a bit) and did not go for it, thankfully, as it later turned out. A junior guy I knew casually around that time, quit his fairly good job to join one of those frothy (literally in a sense, in this case, called (no comment) freshlimesoda.com). I think the excesses on this front (as exemplified by that name and business plan - remember Yo (later), anyone?) were even more in India then, than they were in the US (from what I could gather).
Conversely, in a previous (less-publicized bust), I was working as a Unix system engineer in a large national-level hardware+software company in India, and was quite junior. Soon after I joined, there was an industry "shakeout" (term used then) and several mid-level people were let go (both in India and the US, probably, in the industry as a whole). We juniors were mostly spared, though, except for the bottom of the barrel, who were sacked.
When this boom ends, the 40+ should expect to be the first cut. Again. Just like in 1992, 2001, 2008,
In 2001, the dot com bust was just that - a bust of companies with no real business model and no profits. The local tech scene outside of the west coast didn’t even whiff. Corporations were still hiring staff developers to support their internal processes.
Between 2008-2011, I was already over 35 and older than most of the developers that were at the company I worked for. They let go of many of the younger less experienced developers during the time but by then I was the most experienced C# developer, the only experienced C++/MFC developer after they fired the founder, and the only one with the maturity to lead my own projects, do SOWs, and talk to our remaining customers.
Ten years later, I work for another small company, I’m in my mid 40s and I doubt very seriously that I won’t be the last to get laid off if it comes to that. I now have project management experience, I can jump between the three languages we use, and we are an AWS shop and I’m the most experienced (and certified) AWS person. I can also jump back and forth between development, Devops, and netops.
I’m not bragging, after 20+ years as a professional developer working at small companies, you pick up a diverse skillset.
I see this with salespeople all of the time. There are a million Willy Lomans out there, and the arc of their careers if you get to see it is sad and predictable.
One guy who comes to mind was a high flyer for a big vendor, driving a Porsche, etc. 10 years later, he’s at some VAR. A few years later, some shitty company that gobbles up zombie legacy software. Last time I saw him he was at a gas station with his company Camry, peddling restaurant equipment.
If you're currently an employee, start thinking by your 40s about how you could become your own boss.
By 50, if you've played your cards right, you have a lot of connections, a lot of expertise, and you've become rather expensive to employ.
So you do attract attention from the cost cutters wherever you work. But it also means that you might deliver more business value as a consultant than as a full-time employee anyway.
I've seen people who got ahead of this trend, they planned for it, and made it work. They prepared for a long time and then they left. Instead of treading water in the same job for another decade, they semi-retired into consulting.
You do it when you're prepared, you've done your homework, and you can name a couple of companies where you have contacts that would probably be interested in retaining you. Often, your first customer is your former employer. Because if you were doing an essential job, they probably won't be well prepared for it, and they'll want to re-hire you on a consulting basis to oversee the transition.
You end up getting less total compensation from them, but you get paid at a higher rate per unit of your time. Then you string together a few other gigs. If you can't get as much work as you want you at least have some flexibility, maybe you end up spending the winters in a low cost country or something.
The key is in the preparation and paying attention to the right details while you're still in corporate. If you do it right, it can actually help your interests stay aligned with your employer's throughout your entire career. If they have cost pressures your switch to consulting can be a win for them too.
Like a lot of things in life, the key is to know when to quit.
Consulting is definitely not a start-up. It's not scalable. Separately, the average age of founders of successful tech startups is in the late forties.
Alternative take on the parent comment: take on some risk as a consultant to avoid the risk of getting laid off, and do it well in advance of retirement.
Startups are high-risk, high-reward ventures which make less sense to attempt as you age. It's normally a good idea to start moving your assets into fixed income and other low risk investments as you approach retirement, the same risk aversion applies to your income source(s).
Making the shift to consulting, if done properly, actually lowers your income risk because you can't lose your entire income in one go. If you have 3-4 regular clients, the most any one of them can do is force you to take a partial pay hit.
That's why it's a good idea to consider this path and start laying foundations that could make it possible long before you turn 50. Even though many HN users seem to misunderstand it, this isn't a novel idea by any means.
The idea of retirement is a joke, as if it’s this formalized thing that everyone is entitled to. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be, but we act like everyone is supposed to just sit on a golf course once they turn a magic age and live happily ever after without needing to earn a dime for the rest of their lives.
Personally I find the classical “retirement” you see in TV ads to be a sham sold by baby boomers.
>The idea of retirement is a joke, as if it’s this formalized thing that everyone is entitled to.
There's nothing funny about it.
It's a great concept invented by a civilization better than ours in labor concerns, that we have failed to maintain because we allowed greed to overturn everything after the 70s.
Retirement is as great an a civilized invention as universal healthcare, schools, legal system, etc.
It's just that our societies are not worthy of it. Compared to a society that can, we're like primitives that throw disabled kids or elderly to the wolves.
>but we act like everyone is supposed to just sit on a golf course once they turn a magic age and live happily ever after without needing to earn a dime for the rest of their lives
Doesn't have to involve a golf course, but yeah, what's so strange about the situation you describe? For one, people pay all kinds of taxes throughout their lives for that. Second, it's not a "magic age" but a median age (which can change over time) when people no longer cannot realistically work (strength, health problems, etc).
I'd like to see you at 65+ with no retirement money and no job prospects, how that would change your tune...
The concept of retirement was conceived of when, as you suggest, the working class could not afford savings while being destined for incapacitation from decades of hard labor. What was normally a family upkeep of tending to an elderly loved on was converted to a social cost.
Now, hoewever, most people work sedentary jobs with plenty of opportunity to aim for a life of retirement if they do please. Most do not. Is this society’s fault that employees don’t contribute to their 401(k)s until they are in their thirties?
To counter your point, a truly civilized society leads to greater individual responsibility for the self and for others. That doesn’t happen when things like healthcare and social security are planned for you using 80-year old blueprints.
>Is this society’s fault that employees don’t contribute to their 401(k)s until they are in their thirties?
I didn't have the opportunity or even know what a 401k was except at a high level until I was 26 in my first 'big job'. I'm 28 and still haven't put any money into it because I cannot afford to in a corporate IT position. I'm still trying to pay down my health insurance deductible so I can get my medications. How can I ever retire? At this point, I'm going to work until I die.
Not sure how this is my fault when I'm educated and work 45 hours per week and am away from home for 60 when adding in my commute.
Duly noted. I’m not trying to be snide, but from your brief history you indicate you were ignorant of any sort of retirement actionable strategies. Frankly you are growing up in the most information abdunant age in world history with copious information on wealth management. Irrespective of personal upbringings which no doubt create wealth discrepancies, you clearly were not taking long-term decisions in your twenties. How else can we explain your lack of active pursuit of financial education? The buck has to stop somewhere.
I hate this attitude among Americans. Like there is some strategy you can play that will make sure you won't get screwed over in life, and that if you do get screwed over in life it's because your strategy was wrong.
It has so much more to do with luck than I think people like you are willing to admit. Where is the compassion in your writing? This story is about people losing their jobs simply because they're old and used up by a society that doesn't give a shit. And here you are talking about strategies for success. It's gross.
Also, another confusion of "anyone" vs. "everyone". The English language has those two distinct words, unlike my own native language, so English speakers should actually be at an advantage here. Any time someone comes up with an example that (in an idealized universe, but let's grant them the unrealistic assumption because it does not even affect the final result) would work for anyone, make a check if it works for everyone, meaning what would happen if everyone actually did just that.
I think such huge levels of new "entrepreneurs" just means you get something like "Uber jobs". All the risk of being on your own but none of the benefits of being part of a large organization. Even if every single new entrepreneur were to cure one kind of cancer - how many such people are needed before the ROI on a cure for a cancer form is down to pennies? Just to use an extreme example where every single person actually is a genius. Now imagine what happens when most people are ordinary. Not to mention that actual monetization of cures for forms of cancer can only be handled by - large companies! It seems to me to be quite clear, given the complexity of what needs to be done in today's world economy (vs. shoe makers or smiths or XYZ makers in centuries past who could happily work alone or with just family) that most people in the economy should be employed and part of large(r) organizations. If everybody is an individual (entrepreneur) this would not fit into how modern society works, solving complex tasks in a tight network of people.
To me it's like propagating a mostly bacteria world because multicellular organisms, where individuals give up most of their autonomy and prefer to be part of a big organization, are somehow "bad" (and cancer cells, breaking out of the organization to follow their own path, are somehow rebels fighting for freedom?). To me, people giving up many of their freedoms to work in a higher-level form of organization is something positive, and I think we actually need more of it. The problem is that, following the multicellular organism analogy, today's organisms (firms) are quite hostile towards their own cells (workers). Too narrow-minded. They could (allowed to) be that way - if the parent organization, the state, would jump in and provide the safety instead, on the (even) higher level. For the unbelievable wealth (in tools, knowledge, infrastructure, processes, networks) that at least part of humanity has accumulated and achieved I think we have waaayyyyy too much risk completely unnecessarily put on individuals, for no good reason. We could easily give everyone food and shelter and some basics. To me, much of that pressure on people is completely artificial. "Sure, we could feed you, but we won't because you are unworthy."
1) most ordinary entrepreneurs can find plenty of work handling finished goods, e.g. FBA. It’s the capital that is needed for them to start which is a problem for those who would rather buy a mortgage, vacation, etc. than build a business.
2) I find your opinion of a corporate social contract terrifying. If anything, entrepreneurialism is necessary for the ex nihilo creation of labor demand to keep society stable.
Your 1) Please read again, this does not fit to anything I wrote. Especially the main point, that inconvenient "anybody" vs. "everybody" thing that you completely ignore.
Your 2) This too has nothing at all to do with what I wrote. You respond to whatever strange visions appear in your own mind. I'm very sorry for you if you find the idea that people who are down and/or out are getting help so frightening, that non-rich people don't have to live in fear. And if you want to point to the "overachievers" - again see my main point and answer those points (first you have to actually notice and acknowledge them, of which there is no sign even though it was the main point of my post, "anybody" vs. "everybody").
1) “Just to use an extreme example where every single person actually is a genius. Now imagine what happens when most people are ordinary.”
My capitalization caveat for ordinary entrepreneurs was to preempt the response that ordinary people can’t afford to quit their day jobs.
2) “To me, people giving up many of their freedoms to work in a higher-level form of organization is something positive, and I think we actually need more of it.”
I disagreed. We need more disagreeableness in society and less conformity. Anyone can but not everyone will ;).
I also think it is counterproductive for each to try to think the way proposed. The market gets cheap expert consultants without the higher medical costs that come with the time it took to create them and still bringing down the wages of new workers. The workers are collectively screwed because they competed on strategies rather than collectively bargaining.
If I end up a well paid consultant in my retirement, then I just sold even more of my life away for the garbage the market produces to justify endless competition. I really only need my portion of the basics, like every other worker.
Yeah it's gross. It doesn't apply in all tiers of corporate/company life, but it certainly does in the upper (Fortune500) ones and so on. That is what I've seen so far. Very Machiavellian. To be honest, I'm about to take my hat and run, myself.
What you've done here is create multiple strawmen, attribute them to me, and then rationalize this fictional version of me as a "typical American." It's very insulting.
Nowhere did I say luck doesn't play a part. Nowhere did I say I lack compassion for the people in the article. Nowhere did I say that I think things are fine as they are.
The reality of the business world today is that employment is at-will. There's nothing stopping employers doing the things described in this article. So I offered up a way that people I know have managed to improve their career outcomes. Having several consulting clients is often a lower-risk approach to the later stages of your career than depending on one employer for all of your income. This is a forum dedicated to entrepreneurship so I think my comments are appropriate here.
> The reality of the business world today is that employment is at-will. There's nothing stopping employers doing the things described in this article. So I offered up a way that people I know have managed to improve their career outcomes.
Here's a way to improve career outcomes: roll back at-will employment laws and give labor more leverage in negotiations with management.
>> I hate this attitude among Americans. Like there is some strategy you can play that will make sure you won't get screwed over in life, and that if you do get screwed over in life it's because your strategy was wrong.
That’s called life? You make it sound as though the existence of risk in life is an evil, rather than a plain fact.
This is what I did. Mid fifties and earning more than I ever did before. The wife with equal experience plus a masters in CS hasn’t been able to find work. Employers are enthusiastic about her skills but once they figure out her age, crickets.
I don’t understand your wife’s treatment. Is it because of fear of salary requirements, underemployment, or health insurance premiums? I only see reason in my last guess.
I don’t get why people think “starting your own company” is less risky than working for someone.
I’m in my mid 40s and don’t spend a single minute worried about being laid off or my company folding.
I do however spend a lot of time keeping my network of local recruiters warm and making sure my skillset is marketable.
I have a group of friends we are all in our 40s and we all change jobs at the drop of a dime. None of us have any desire to be in management but we make sure we keep up with industry trends.
In fact, our former manager is in his late 50s and self demoted to a developer after his kids graduated and he is a full stack .Net/JavaScript/Azure Developer.
Man you’re not wrong, but imho it’s a pretty bleak world where you have to have the competence as an independent consultant to survive the last 20ish years of your career. No doubt many of us can attain that, but I’d venture to say that the majority of people can’t. Whether mental defficiency, physical limitations, etc, there are a lot of curveballs in life that don’t set most people up to fit this role.
One option is to raise children that will grow up to support you in older age and live together to cut down on babysitting and housing costs. That’s the norm everywhere people can’t afford to live individually.
If you have a mental deficiency you’re kind of out of luck anyway when it comes to being gainfully employed. On the other hand, one reason I would think about being a consultant is because it would be a lot easier physically than typing on a keyboard all day and risk RSI.
I guess I should have been better at that statement. I’m not talking mentally disabled in the low iq sense, but more on a relativistic sense. I would wildly guess that consultants make up 25% or less of the workforce (really that’s an intuitive guess so it’s probably a lot more or less). Which would imply only around the top % to match that number (whatever it is) are even capable of being a consultant. And then you have to have the social/network skills, the ability to plan around uncertainty, the ability to shift industries if yours becomes automated or your knowledge falls too far from modern practices, etc.
Don’t get me wrong I’ve worked as a consultant and really enjoyed it. But I’m also young and I can take risks like that. I honestly fear for anyone who doesn’t have a severely privileged background attempting to make this a viable career alternative to traditional work. There are so so many gotchas.
Ideally, I would prefer to work for a consulting company as an overpriced “implementation consultant”, “digital transformation consultant”, etc.
I’ve been recruited (ie lunch with hiring managers who wanted to talk to me) for such a role because of my experience based on my resume but I knew that I needed to take some time to get more real world experience in a few areas - cloud and front end and the $cool_kids JavaScript stack.
That being said, I am in my mid 40s and consider myself competitive in the local market as a back end developer/architect with the Microsoft stack and fairly competitive with AWS.
As far as being “privileged”, I found the industry to be mostly merit based over my 20+ year career. I’m a minority, below average height, went to a no name state college and I have a slight disability - not the model of someone with any “privilege”. I’ve never been rejected for a job that I thought I was qualified for - I also only use recruiters. I don’t waste my time blindly submitting resumes.
That may change in three or four years when I am looking for my next job. There are relatively few local companies that do the type of consulting that I’m focusing on compared to standard “full stack” developer/architect roles.
I like your comment, but I wish you (and other similar commenters) would reveal more details of the secret sauce!
Whenever people on here advocate "going into consulting" they do so with vague advice like: Lay the right foundation! and Play your cards right! and Do your homework! These things sound great but aren't specific or actionable. If I want to quit my job in, say, a year and become a consultant, what specific steps do I need to take? How do these companies "retain" me? How do you know they have "cost pressures" that lead to you consulting? Where do I find out about these "gigs" to string together? Does this activity go through recruiters just like a regular job hunt?
Which contacts help you find these gigs? I don't have that many--what do you do when you've talked to them all? Most of my contacts from previous companies are individual contributor rank-and-file employees and probably are not involved with hiring contractors, plus they work for companies I quit and don't want to work for anymore!
There was another article about teachers today. It feels as though much of the problems in the U.S are self inflicted - how can a country that is home to best innovation on the planet, that attracts best brains from all over the world, that has insane amount of wealth, abundance of raw materials etc, get so wrong about basic things like teachers' pay, near zero protection for employees and so on? It is mind boggling - these problems just shouldn't exist in a country like U.S and still they do :(
Because, for most of these problems ... from the point-of-view of anyone with enough resources to solve them, they are non-problems and/or not severe enough for the solution to be worth the cost. While that remains true, there will never be any rational reason to solve them.
I think those things we’re “wrong” about are a very key component to our wealth and innovation. We have a system that funnels talent and labor up through the chain to create more and more profit for the top. I mean think about our visa program - it’s literally designed to scrape the top % of talent from everywhere else in the world, while underpaying is pretty much guaranteed.
I really don’t see these problems getting anything but worse as time goes on.
As a programmer in my 50s, this is of concern to me.
But I think ProPublica is putting their thumb on the scales a bit. They add in fudge-factors for people who say they are retired, but ProPublica suspects were pushed out. They further add in some skew for those who say conditions deteriorated, but ProPublica assumes were really shown the door. This is just adding weight to their natural bias-- it's no way to actually learn anything.
P.S. I lived for 19 years in South Dakota. I cannot image a basement that is overheated in December.
The title makes it look as if the pushing out is due to age discrimination, but it isn’t. The discrimination is in the rehiring.
You have to read about halfway down to learn that:
“Older workers don’t lose their jobs any more frequently than younger ones,” said Princeton labor economist Henry Farber, “but when they do, they’re substantially less likely to be re-employed.”
The big lesson is that even with a degree, there's a >=50% chance you will be forced into a hostile labor market in your 50s. High schools and universities are all starry-eyed about the career prospects of a degree, but degrees and skills have a best before date in the labor market.
Continuing in full-time employment is a coin flip past 50. Here in Canada the ProPublica data will be fuel for wrongful dismissal lawsuits - maybe even resulting in awards of half pay to retirement age.
In IT, you really need to plan for a career that might terminate at 35. You win the lottery when your equity in a startup is enough to retire on.
As a geek the tendency is to keep your head down developing code - and geeks tend to be low on networking skills.
So you really do need to limit your coding hours and put x hours / week into networking and side projects.
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[ 1.6 ms ] story [ 177 ms ] threadMake sure you live a life and have a plan so that when you get fired, or when your retirement plan collapses, or when they raise the retirement age, or any one of 500 other very likely outcomes occur you can still live a good life.
> Make sure you live a life and have a plan so that when you get fired ... you can still live a good life.
Well yeah, I think just about everyone would like to have both a great life and financial security. The problem is that those two goals can be at odds for some/most people.
No offense op, but if you have a clear idea, it’s better to communicate clearly. Why play riddles and not flat out state what you’re trying to state?
My plan is to live cheaply through my 20s, 30s and 40s, and put away money so that I can continue to do that forever, without really needing a lot of money because my wants and expenses are low.
I've never owned a TV or a new car, never lived alone (always in a share house) and I've never bought a phone, I just get old, old ones off friends.
It's working great for me.
IMO, you don’t have to take a feast or starve approach but find a balance. My vacations weren’t the kind of Hawaii getaways that people in Hollywood are probably accustomed to. Cheap food, low end hotel, etc but I got to travel and see new cultures.
I’m not posting this to say I figured out some genius financial insight, but anyone reading this who’s young or early in their career - for the love of god, do save money in your retirement account. Assuming there’s a company match, it’s essentially free money. Do pay back student loans unless you can discharge them. A ruined credit is going to close so many doors, from financing an auto purchase to home ownership and other things.
You will have to retire some day, and depending on the broken welfare system (at least in the US) to provide for all your needs is reckless.
Everybody should live well, while they are young, because they should just die as soon as they've aged out?
I see a lot of support for your position out there, but it's hard for me to be thrilled about it at 50. I do like that you intend to keep doing economic activity, as you're a potential customer so you could be keeping ME alive for a while. But I'd like to think your choice here doesn't simply doom you later.
I'm not saying everyone should do this, it's just the answer I came up with. I know people who go the other way and also seem happy (though some not too) so it comes down to personal introspection abd preference.
Health insurance is nuts, though. I’ll grant you, and I have no hope that it’ll improve. I’m currently generously covered by my employer, but if I wasn’t, I’d look at medical tourism for anything serious. I’ve been thinking of expatriating to France or Spain for a variety of reasons, healthcare being one.
Healthcare is a separate animal and small potatoes if you can afford to pay 3k$/month mortgage as you'll have health coverage via employer.
I think we're all "reimbursing" insurance companies quite enough, thank you very much.
No I’m not bragging, any software developer with 5-7 years of experience could easily afford to live here.
If you’re paying $1000 a month on food for just two people, “you’re doing it wrong” and “organic food” is just a yuppie thing that has no proven health benefits and is largely just a marketing thing.
Do an exercise for a couple of months, or better yet a whole year: record all your expenditures and classify them. I can guarantee the results will be eye opening.
And you are right.
Our budget for “Household” which goes into a separate account is $900 for the three people. That includes groceries and household supplies. It doesn’t include my “spending money” which includes breakfast (egg white patties, fresh cut Deli meat, low carb wraps) and lunch so that would be an extra $200 a month by myself and my wife probably spends an equal amount out of her “spending money”.
Our eating out at a restaurant is part of what we set aside for “date nights” which is probably another $150-$200 a month.
And then my son usually picks up something if he has to work.
But, I understand those are extravagancies that we could cut back on if we needed to. But my wife works and has a part time “working hobby”, and I spend time “leveling up” to increase my income.
Is it easy to get another job at the same pay (eg how long does it take on average, and what's the new pay) ?
Are there differences between genders at this age bracket in terms of ability to find a job with similar pay without relocating ?
What types of professional skills are making getting a job easier?
Article just makes it sound that future for most of US workers around that age, is of a decline in everything (pay, satisfaction, ability to stay close with family, job security). Is this same in other developed nations?
The best solution is to create your own business. The downside is while your boss is understanding your customers are not.
It's my suspicion that one of the causes for the rising suicide rate in the US is due to baby boomers who are now entering this period of despair where you're simultaneously forced out of work and unable to carry your medical expenses. In particular, health issues often prevent people from working and your health usually declines as you age.
While on this topic health care costs are one of the major driving factors for companies wanting to get rid of older workers.
So, in US -- unless a person cannot afford 100$ a month or so -- they are likely not going to get bankrupted by medical bills regardless of their size. Perhaps also they will have hard time getting credit/loans.
And also, my understanding was, that a US medical provider cannot refuse service to a person without insurance or without a credit card.
These above understandings are anecdotal.. so not sure if that's correct.
From the responses I am sing that Australia, Italy at the age of 50 and after -- people have same problem finding work.
It is saddening to see that there seems to be no way out besides trying to start consulting or other self-employment opportunities.
This is increasingly hard also because since youth unemployment is super high the government insists into applying huge incentives to hire under-30s (you basically get them tax free and taxes here are lots)
So doesn't matter much what skill you carry because the competition is uneven and places that are growing enough to justify hiring skilled worker into management or leadership positions are exceedingly rare. (a mix of recessive economy, family run business that don't hire outsiders, unavailability of credit for new business)
Also, this particular paragraph is something:
"Linda Norris, 62, of Nashua, New Hampshire, earned a similar amount doing engineering work for defense contractors before being laid off in late 2015. She spent much of 2016 campaigning for then-candidate Donald Trump and is convinced her fortunes will change now that he’s president. In the meantime, she hasn’t been able to find a permanent full-time job and said she has $25 to her name."
I'm 50 and my own boss, and certainly will never be able to retire. I think I'm doing damn well to not be broke and homeless after more than a decade of entrepreneur-ing in the US. One of the things I do to survive is make sure to provide stuff for free-riders like you, but if everybody was determinedly refusing to spend I'd be really boned. SOMEONE has to spend money on goods and services and stuff.
Rather than trying to hold back the tide by government fiat, why not prepare people for an income path that peaks in your 40s and slowly declines with your mind and body.
Your obligations tend to increase with age, and telling someone that they only have ~20 years to make enough money to last the rest of their life sounds rather dystopian. It’ll accelerate what’s already become a rat race in the US job market.
I think it would be better to be upfront with everyone that employment after 50 is going to be non-existent or paid at a lower rate and let people adjust their spending to match. It would certainly be much better than lying to people that they can work until 65 with an ever increasing wage.
But the real issue is a failure of the welfare state to protect the elderly and with retirement age ever increasing the problem will only worsen.
If you know you are going to be facing a declining or no income from your 50s onwards you might save more and spend less when you are younger.
What you going to tell them, "though shit now go be homeless somewhere out of sight?"
In this scenario, poor people are simply paid death wages, regardless of the reason for their low-paying job.
This could be true for a small number of people; but when we look at the population as a whole, spending has to be balanced by productivity. People can't spend money on goods and services that aren't being produced. If there is excess productivity that isn't matched by wages -- if people are consistently able to consume more than they earn -- we have to ask where that extra productivity is coming from.
I think most of would prefer to live a less luxurious lifestyle in our 30s and 40s if it meant we weren't homeless and unemployable in our 50s and 60s.
Sorry, but that’s nothing to do with your age, that’s on you. The rest of us leverage experience to work smarter not harder. The ageism we face is prejudice and bigotry, not a rational reaction.
I have leveraged my skill and experience so I earn far more today than I did 10 years ago, but being honest with myself I know I am past my productivity peak. I wish it was otherwise as there is nothing good about getting older.
Well, I am better that I was 10 years ago, and I look around me and see experienced guys are vastly more productive, since the industry is cyclical and we have seen it all before.
But, I definitely work smarter and have that breadth of knowledge to know how to leverage preexisting technology, use managed services and outsource the “undifferentiated heavy lifting” to outside vendors.
I think the problems with The US healthcare system is more than just excessive profits - its extreme complexity and the sheer arbitrariness are bigger problems. Add in a system where you have to be employed to have coverage and you would be hard presssed to design a worse system if you tried.
Why not just dispense with that altogether, and just execute anybody over 65 that doesn't have spare money? They wont be a burden to society anymore, and we could even make them something useful like some kind of meat or leather goods. The primitives tribes that just left them in the jungle to die, or threw them to the woods, had it right.
/s
There is actually a community in India (so I've read - not sure if true) that does that - the Todas. They leave (or used to leave) their elderly in large urns once they are unable to work and help themselves. Been to Ooty (in the Nilgiris, a mountain range in South India), and seen some of them when I was a kid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toda_people
We aren't living in a jungle where it is every man for himself.
Older people might not be as fast as they used to be, but they do have experience and wisdom.
Profit margins aren't the only thing in life/business. The best societies are those that take care of their sick, elderly and the disabled.
Its nice to be wanted and not worry about finding employment, but these demands keep me from doing anything else even with my personal time. I wonder what it would be like to be extremely wealthy or poor and dictate my own path.
I think though the secret is to keep your skills up to date, which from friends and colleagues of the same era is not that common. Likewise I think keeping what I call a 'young' attitude - being open to new things, keep learning etc - is very important. (I know a lot of curmudgeons :-))
When this boom ends, the 40+ should expect to be the first cut. Again. Just like in 1992, 2001, 2008, ...
Either there are cuts to meet cost expectations, which kills high paid management first, or there are cuts by quota. When they come by quota its the people perceived as providing the least value, which is not always connected with work ethic. People who manage necessary legacy systems have greater value than a hard working easily replaceable young guy.
- management always looks after management
- individuals job performance is irrelevant if an entire location or business line is closing
- sacking key workers then discovering it after the fact and paying far more for contractors/outsourcing is common
Again - didn't happen, did have to reduce my rate for a short time once or twice. I used the opportunity to stuff my resume a bit.
I've known a few guys that have had tough times in downturns, but they've usually had experience in stuff that was obsolete and haven't kept their skills current. e.g. I knew a guy who was an oracle DBA for 30 years, the writing has been on the wall for this for years, I got out of it a long time before, but he was getting paid well and just kept his head in the sand, sure enough one day it dried up.
It's not like your fifty and have no useful skills, but any one with no useful skills regardless of age will find things tough in a downturn. If you're any age and have good skills then you'll get a job.
What I'm trying to say it's not an age thing, its a relevant skills thing. If you have entry level skills because all the stuff you've done is no longer useful, then you'll be competing in a job market against graduates and yes, you're going to have a bad time.
I've been an assembler programmer, a forth programmer, a progress programmer etc and if I'd stuck to them blindly years ago then things would have been bad. Now I'm a swift and C# programmer who does agile and things are good and will be for the next few years, if things change then, change you must. There's no point in arguing with it.
Indeed if you're fifty and have skills that are current plus years of industry experience then I'd argue the opposite - if you come up against a new graduate with the same experience at the same price,and you have all this other experience on top then who'd say no?
What happens if "everyone" does it and now you compete not with a few but with hundreds, thousands? Will you still do and feel so good? Does your suggestions scale if it is applied not just to a few? What makes you think you can just multiply your particular personal situation by [insert any number here] and it will still work?
The attitude of 'if everyone does well, then it makes my life harder' I find regrettable. Again, I suspect this is a minority view.
Edit: Imagine the situation where education is freely available, where people have a life long love of learning. Where companies allow their employees to go to classes of all sorts. Wouldn't that be a great world. The one we have now is sort of the opposite. The strange part is this could all be done now, all it takes is a political will. Damn commies I suppose.
Whether the older or the younger ones get cut first can vary, based on various factors, and probably will vary in future too.
In 2001 downturn (which was due to the dot-com bust and post 9/11), I've read that a lot of younger ones were cut first. That was reportedly because they had only one or so skill, e.g. Java (during the boom, cos. were hiring and sending to the US, people who had a few weeks of Java on their resume, they were that desperate for people), while older people often had a good mix of skills (e.g. some language, some DB, some OS, some libs, s/w engg. skills, etc., so it was higher VFM (Value For Money) to retain them), so were fired less and later. In the dot-com boom that just preceded the bust (read up on the details somewhere or ask those who know, those who don't know about it, the factors involved are too long to describe in a comment here), dotcos were flush with funds from VCs and even Wall Street types, and were throwing money at employees left and right. I've even heard that BMWs were on offer as a joining bonus (in the US, SF Bay Area). I myself (was in India) got some crazy high offers (e.g. had some years' experience in projects and with skills in a mix of in-demand technologies, did not consider myself experienced enough to be a CTO, but got an offer for that role from a Mumbai dotco for a giant sum), but did not take it seriously (although I'll admit I was tempted and considered it a bit) and did not go for it, thankfully, as it later turned out. A junior guy I knew casually around that time, quit his fairly good job to join one of those frothy (literally in a sense, in this case, called (no comment) freshlimesoda.com). I think the excesses on this front (as exemplified by that name and business plan - remember Yo (later), anyone?) were even more in India then, than they were in the US (from what I could gather).
Conversely, in a previous (less-publicized bust), I was working as a Unix system engineer in a large national-level hardware+software company in India, and was quite junior. Soon after I joined, there was an industry "shakeout" (term used then) and several mid-level people were let go (both in India and the US, probably, in the industry as a whole). We juniors were mostly spared, though, except for the bottom of the barrel, who were sacked.
to join one of those frothy dotcos,
I meant. Sometimes my tendency to parenthesize overwhelms me, and I drop some words as a result. (Maybe I was a Lisper in a previous life)
See what I did there? :)
In 2001, the dot com bust was just that - a bust of companies with no real business model and no profits. The local tech scene outside of the west coast didn’t even whiff. Corporations were still hiring staff developers to support their internal processes.
Between 2008-2011, I was already over 35 and older than most of the developers that were at the company I worked for. They let go of many of the younger less experienced developers during the time but by then I was the most experienced C# developer, the only experienced C++/MFC developer after they fired the founder, and the only one with the maturity to lead my own projects, do SOWs, and talk to our remaining customers.
Ten years later, I work for another small company, I’m in my mid 40s and I doubt very seriously that I won’t be the last to get laid off if it comes to that. I now have project management experience, I can jump between the three languages we use, and we are an AWS shop and I’m the most experienced (and certified) AWS person. I can also jump back and forth between development, Devops, and netops.
I’m not bragging, after 20+ years as a professional developer working at small companies, you pick up a diverse skillset.
One guy who comes to mind was a high flyer for a big vendor, driving a Porsche, etc. 10 years later, he’s at some VAR. A few years later, some shitty company that gobbles up zombie legacy software. Last time I saw him he was at a gas station with his company Camry, peddling restaurant equipment.
By 50, if you've played your cards right, you have a lot of connections, a lot of expertise, and you've become rather expensive to employ.
So you do attract attention from the cost cutters wherever you work. But it also means that you might deliver more business value as a consultant than as a full-time employee anyway.
I've seen people who got ahead of this trend, they planned for it, and made it work. They prepared for a long time and then they left. Instead of treading water in the same job for another decade, they semi-retired into consulting.
You do it when you're prepared, you've done your homework, and you can name a couple of companies where you have contacts that would probably be interested in retaining you. Often, your first customer is your former employer. Because if you were doing an essential job, they probably won't be well prepared for it, and they'll want to re-hire you on a consulting basis to oversee the transition.
You end up getting less total compensation from them, but you get paid at a higher rate per unit of your time. Then you string together a few other gigs. If you can't get as much work as you want you at least have some flexibility, maybe you end up spending the winters in a low cost country or something.
The key is in the preparation and paying attention to the right details while you're still in corporate. If you do it right, it can actually help your interests stay aligned with your employer's throughout your entire career. If they have cost pressures your switch to consulting can be a win for them too.
Like a lot of things in life, the key is to know when to quit.
Startups are high-risk, high-reward ventures which make less sense to attempt as you age. It's normally a good idea to start moving your assets into fixed income and other low risk investments as you approach retirement, the same risk aversion applies to your income source(s).
Making the shift to consulting, if done properly, actually lowers your income risk because you can't lose your entire income in one go. If you have 3-4 regular clients, the most any one of them can do is force you to take a partial pay hit.
That's why it's a good idea to consider this path and start laying foundations that could make it possible long before you turn 50. Even though many HN users seem to misunderstand it, this isn't a novel idea by any means.
Personally I find the classical “retirement” you see in TV ads to be a sham sold by baby boomers.
There's nothing funny about it.
It's a great concept invented by a civilization better than ours in labor concerns, that we have failed to maintain because we allowed greed to overturn everything after the 70s.
Retirement is as great an a civilized invention as universal healthcare, schools, legal system, etc.
It's just that our societies are not worthy of it. Compared to a society that can, we're like primitives that throw disabled kids or elderly to the wolves.
>but we act like everyone is supposed to just sit on a golf course once they turn a magic age and live happily ever after without needing to earn a dime for the rest of their lives
Doesn't have to involve a golf course, but yeah, what's so strange about the situation you describe? For one, people pay all kinds of taxes throughout their lives for that. Second, it's not a "magic age" but a median age (which can change over time) when people no longer cannot realistically work (strength, health problems, etc).
I'd like to see you at 65+ with no retirement money and no job prospects, how that would change your tune...
Now, hoewever, most people work sedentary jobs with plenty of opportunity to aim for a life of retirement if they do please. Most do not. Is this society’s fault that employees don’t contribute to their 401(k)s until they are in their thirties?
To counter your point, a truly civilized society leads to greater individual responsibility for the self and for others. That doesn’t happen when things like healthcare and social security are planned for you using 80-year old blueprints.
I didn't have the opportunity or even know what a 401k was except at a high level until I was 26 in my first 'big job'. I'm 28 and still haven't put any money into it because I cannot afford to in a corporate IT position. I'm still trying to pay down my health insurance deductible so I can get my medications. How can I ever retire? At this point, I'm going to work until I die.
Not sure how this is my fault when I'm educated and work 45 hours per week and am away from home for 60 when adding in my commute.
Obviously yes.
It has so much more to do with luck than I think people like you are willing to admit. Where is the compassion in your writing? This story is about people losing their jobs simply because they're old and used up by a society that doesn't give a shit. And here you are talking about strategies for success. It's gross.
I think such huge levels of new "entrepreneurs" just means you get something like "Uber jobs". All the risk of being on your own but none of the benefits of being part of a large organization. Even if every single new entrepreneur were to cure one kind of cancer - how many such people are needed before the ROI on a cure for a cancer form is down to pennies? Just to use an extreme example where every single person actually is a genius. Now imagine what happens when most people are ordinary. Not to mention that actual monetization of cures for forms of cancer can only be handled by - large companies! It seems to me to be quite clear, given the complexity of what needs to be done in today's world economy (vs. shoe makers or smiths or XYZ makers in centuries past who could happily work alone or with just family) that most people in the economy should be employed and part of large(r) organizations. If everybody is an individual (entrepreneur) this would not fit into how modern society works, solving complex tasks in a tight network of people.
To me it's like propagating a mostly bacteria world because multicellular organisms, where individuals give up most of their autonomy and prefer to be part of a big organization, are somehow "bad" (and cancer cells, breaking out of the organization to follow their own path, are somehow rebels fighting for freedom?). To me, people giving up many of their freedoms to work in a higher-level form of organization is something positive, and I think we actually need more of it. The problem is that, following the multicellular organism analogy, today's organisms (firms) are quite hostile towards their own cells (workers). Too narrow-minded. They could (allowed to) be that way - if the parent organization, the state, would jump in and provide the safety instead, on the (even) higher level. For the unbelievable wealth (in tools, knowledge, infrastructure, processes, networks) that at least part of humanity has accumulated and achieved I think we have waaayyyyy too much risk completely unnecessarily put on individuals, for no good reason. We could easily give everyone food and shelter and some basics. To me, much of that pressure on people is completely artificial. "Sure, we could feed you, but we won't because you are unworthy."
2) I find your opinion of a corporate social contract terrifying. If anything, entrepreneurialism is necessary for the ex nihilo creation of labor demand to keep society stable.
Your 1) Please read again, this does not fit to anything I wrote. Especially the main point, that inconvenient "anybody" vs. "everybody" thing that you completely ignore.
Your 2) This too has nothing at all to do with what I wrote. You respond to whatever strange visions appear in your own mind. I'm very sorry for you if you find the idea that people who are down and/or out are getting help so frightening, that non-rich people don't have to live in fear. And if you want to point to the "overachievers" - again see my main point and answer those points (first you have to actually notice and acknowledge them, of which there is no sign even though it was the main point of my post, "anybody" vs. "everybody").
Could you please not create accounts to do that with?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
1) “Just to use an extreme example where every single person actually is a genius. Now imagine what happens when most people are ordinary.”
My capitalization caveat for ordinary entrepreneurs was to preempt the response that ordinary people can’t afford to quit their day jobs.
2) “To me, people giving up many of their freedoms to work in a higher-level form of organization is something positive, and I think we actually need more of it.”
I disagreed. We need more disagreeableness in society and less conformity. Anyone can but not everyone will ;).
If I end up a well paid consultant in my retirement, then I just sold even more of my life away for the garbage the market produces to justify endless competition. I really only need my portion of the basics, like every other worker.
Nowhere did I say luck doesn't play a part. Nowhere did I say I lack compassion for the people in the article. Nowhere did I say that I think things are fine as they are.
The reality of the business world today is that employment is at-will. There's nothing stopping employers doing the things described in this article. So I offered up a way that people I know have managed to improve their career outcomes. Having several consulting clients is often a lower-risk approach to the later stages of your career than depending on one employer for all of your income. This is a forum dedicated to entrepreneurship so I think my comments are appropriate here.
Here's a way to improve career outcomes: roll back at-will employment laws and give labor more leverage in negotiations with management.
Historically we've killed & bombed our very own citizens for trying to change things like that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
That’s called life? You make it sound as though the existence of risk in life is an evil, rather than a plain fact.
In addition, please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow all the rules when posting here. They include:
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
I’m in my mid 40s and don’t spend a single minute worried about being laid off or my company folding.
I do however spend a lot of time keeping my network of local recruiters warm and making sure my skillset is marketable.
I have a group of friends we are all in our 40s and we all change jobs at the drop of a dime. None of us have any desire to be in management but we make sure we keep up with industry trends.
In fact, our former manager is in his late 50s and self demoted to a developer after his kids graduated and he is a full stack .Net/JavaScript/Azure Developer.
Don’t get me wrong I’ve worked as a consultant and really enjoyed it. But I’m also young and I can take risks like that. I honestly fear for anyone who doesn’t have a severely privileged background attempting to make this a viable career alternative to traditional work. There are so so many gotchas.
I’ve been recruited (ie lunch with hiring managers who wanted to talk to me) for such a role because of my experience based on my resume but I knew that I needed to take some time to get more real world experience in a few areas - cloud and front end and the $cool_kids JavaScript stack.
That being said, I am in my mid 40s and consider myself competitive in the local market as a back end developer/architect with the Microsoft stack and fairly competitive with AWS.
As far as being “privileged”, I found the industry to be mostly merit based over my 20+ year career. I’m a minority, below average height, went to a no name state college and I have a slight disability - not the model of someone with any “privilege”. I’ve never been rejected for a job that I thought I was qualified for - I also only use recruiters. I don’t waste my time blindly submitting resumes.
That may change in three or four years when I am looking for my next job. There are relatively few local companies that do the type of consulting that I’m focusing on compared to standard “full stack” developer/architect roles.
Whenever people on here advocate "going into consulting" they do so with vague advice like: Lay the right foundation! and Play your cards right! and Do your homework! These things sound great but aren't specific or actionable. If I want to quit my job in, say, a year and become a consultant, what specific steps do I need to take? How do these companies "retain" me? How do you know they have "cost pressures" that lead to you consulting? Where do I find out about these "gigs" to string together? Does this activity go through recruiters just like a regular job hunt?
Which contacts help you find these gigs? I don't have that many--what do you do when you've talked to them all? Most of my contacts from previous companies are individual contributor rank-and-file employees and probably are not involved with hiring contractors, plus they work for companies I quit and don't want to work for anymore!
I wish there was more of a HOWTO besides:
1. Nebulously Prepare
2. ???
3. You're a consultant with multiple gigs!
I really don’t see these problems getting anything but worse as time goes on.
But I think ProPublica is putting their thumb on the scales a bit. They add in fudge-factors for people who say they are retired, but ProPublica suspects were pushed out. They further add in some skew for those who say conditions deteriorated, but ProPublica assumes were really shown the door. This is just adding weight to their natural bias-- it's no way to actually learn anything.
P.S. I lived for 19 years in South Dakota. I cannot image a basement that is overheated in December.
You have to read about halfway down to learn that:
“Older workers don’t lose their jobs any more frequently than younger ones,” said Princeton labor economist Henry Farber, “but when they do, they’re substantially less likely to be re-employed.”
Continuing in full-time employment is a coin flip past 50. Here in Canada the ProPublica data will be fuel for wrongful dismissal lawsuits - maybe even resulting in awards of half pay to retirement age.
In IT, you really need to plan for a career that might terminate at 35. You win the lottery when your equity in a startup is enough to retire on.
As a geek the tendency is to keep your head down developing code - and geeks tend to be low on networking skills.
So you really do need to limit your coding hours and put x hours / week into networking and side projects.