I am not so naive to believe that age discrimination does not exist, either in overt or sub rosa forms. This New York Times article (by Patricia Cohen) offers some rather terrifying statistics (as well as some sad personal stories and comments on the difficulty with holding corporations accountable for their potentially discriminatory practices.)
...Workers over 50 — about 54 million Americans — are now facing much more precarious financial circumstances, a legacy of the recession. More than half of workers over 50 lose longtime jobs before they are ready to retire, according to a recent analysis by the Urban Institute and ProPublica. Of those, nine out of 10 never recover their previous earning power. Some are able to find only piecemeal or gig work.
“If you lose your job at an older age, it’s really hard to get a new one,” said Richard Johnson, an Urban Institute economist who worked on the analysis....This seems to me to be an issue that is worth exploring in the chemical industry. Is there age discrimination in either the pharma or the chemical industries? (My answer: of course.) This seems to me to be an issue that would be well-suited for both exploration and comment by the American Chemical Society, especially since the median age of members is north of 45...
Most laboratory-based jobs I tend to see are seeking someone with 1-5 years experience; some are up to 10-12 years experience. But as someone who is always surveying the chemical industry landscape, I have never seen a single job listing seeking someone with a minimum of 20 years experience. I imagine certain companies will consider someone with that level of experience, but it seems that outgoing retirees are being back-filled with relatively fresh graduates.
ReplyDeleteI have seen them, but they are relatively rare. Once or twice a month, I would say.
DeleteSounds like a job for CEPA or Senior Chemists.
ReplyDeleteCEPA makes a lot of sense. I have yet to observe an interest in dealing with careers issues from SCC.
Delete"This seems to me to be an issue that would be well-suited for both exploration and comment by the American Chemical Society, especially since the median age of members is north of 45..."
ReplyDeleteParticularly the Councilors...