By Thomas R. Schori, Ph.D., and Michael L. Garee, Principals, Millennium Marketing Research, 808 E. Ironwood, Normal, IL 61761-5239. Tel. 309-532-8466 -
Older workers have been widely lauded for their many reputed virtues. . .They bring a lifetime of experience, expertise and skills to their jobs. In comparison to their younger counterparts, they usually get high marks for attendance and generally experience fewer accidents on the job. Unfortunately, they are also among the most unappreciated, most discriminated against employees in the entire workforce.
During the last decade or so, corporate downsizings, increased use of part-time and contract employees, greater reliance upon automation, and less job security have all combined to create what some refer to as a "corporate culture of expendability." In such an environment, older workers become ipso facto among the most expendable employees in many if not most companies.
The aging of the workforce looks to continue for the foreseeable future, too, as the huge population segment known as "Baby Boomers" ages. The number of workers aged 55 and older reached about 16 million in 1996, and is expected to exceed 22 million by 2005.
Most companies apparently aren’t doing much to prepare for an aging employee pool, either. A 1992 Louis Harris survey of 400 companies revealed that only one in eight saw any urgent need to respond to the unique needs and problems associated with an aging workforce.
Why the prejudice against older workers? Experts say that age discrimination in employment stems, in part at least, from a long-held assumption by many that it is right and proper for older workers to move aside to make room for younger workers who need to support families, that older workers are somehow less competent, and that there is little or no "mileage" in training them for new jobs. Some younger managers who are now doing the bulk of hiring also feel threatened by older, more knowledgeable workers, experts say.
To counteract unfair¾and now illegal¾ employment practices involving older workers, in 1967, Congress passed the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. The law is intended to protect workers 40 and older from unfair discrimination in recruitment, hiring, training, promotion, pay, benefits, firing, layoffs, retirement and other employment practices. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is responsible for investigation of alleged discrimination and enforcement of the law.
Because of reduced staffing levels and budgetary constraints, however, it has become impossible for the EEOC to investigate all but a very few of the individual complaints of age discrimination, let alone prosecute those charged with the practice. In fact, the EEOC files lawsuits in only a very small number of cases. So, not unexpectedly, age discrimination, subtle though it oftentimes is, continues largely unabated in many sectors of the economy. However, when the agency does get involved in age discrimination suits, its "bite" can easily match its "bark." Consider the 1993 case involving the Monsanto company.
Executives in their 20s at the St. Louis, MO-based company fired 66 sales managers, 59 of whom were 40 or older. Forty-three of those fired sued Monsanto and, in June 1996, won a per-person settlement of $125,000 to $500,000. It is hoped, that cases like this, as well as the damages being awarded to victims, will make companies think twice about downsizing strategies that particularly target older workers.
Still, apparently not all companies have been disabused of their age discrimination ways. An average of about 17,000 workers annually bring age discrimination complaints against their employers to the EEOC.
What will it take to eliminate, or at least reduce, age discrimination among American business and industry? As is so often the case, it probably will take the convergence of certain economic conditions to facilitate that, and that convergence appears already to have begun.
As is widely known, the US currently is experiencing the longest, most robust economic expansion in history. Unemployment is at its lowest levels in a generation. In some key areas of the country even unskilled positions go largely unfilled because of a dearth of workers. In most geographic areas, nearly everyone who can work, or at least, wants to work, already has a job.
All of this means, of course, that if current levels of record low unemployment continue, coupled with steadily declining numbers of younger workers and a steady increase in the number of older workers, they¾older workers¾may just end up having the "last laugh" in the resultant "buyers’" job market. Companies that historically have mistreated them, or at least treated them with little or no respect or concern for their well-being, may have to mend their ways if they want to compete in the 21st Century.
We certainly hope that’s the case!