Tom Brady is a now free agent, but the NFL player doesn’t have the same worries as millions of Americans over 40.
Workers over 40 are only about half as likely, or less, to get a job offer than younger workers if employers know their age, according to research released this week conducted by economics professor David Neumark at the University of California, Irvine. The data was adjusted for differences in skills, fit and availability.
Key to the study was a major change that the company made to its hiring systems. Previously all applicants had filled out an initial application form in a face-to-face meeting with a restaurant manager. So their age was apparent from the get-go.
Under the new system, applications began first with a standardized, online, electronic screen. This included over 100 questions designed to find out a candidate’s skills, experience, employability and other attributes related to the job. But it contained no age screen.
When managers could determine an applicant’s age group, those over 40 were between 46% and 65% less likely to get a job offer than those under 40.
Under the new system, older workers were actually more likely to pass the initial, age-blind application process than younger ones, typically because they had more experience.
UC’s Professor Neumark crunched the numbers from a proprietary hiring database maintained by an unnamed national restaurant chain. (The database of 1,600 job applications emerged from an age-discrimination lawsuit). The hiring decisions covered jobs from “front of house,” such as servers, to “back of house,” such as chefs.
“This set of results is strongly consistent with age discrimination,” notes professor Neumark, ‘older applicants are more qualified [than younger ones] in terms of applicant characteristics and evaluations used by the company in their online application system,” he says.
He further found that the discrimination was greater for “front of house” jobs than for “back of house,” though it was significant for both. The implication: Managers are more reluctant to employ older servers, because they think the customers won’t like them.
Older workers and those over 50 are more likely to work as independent contractors, separate research from the progressive Economic Policy Institute, a labor policy think tank, concluded. The share of people working as independent contractors, freelancers and other categories of on-call workers who were ages 55 to 64 increased to 22.9% in 2017 from 18.8% in 2005. For people aged 65 and older, the figure rose to 14.1% from 8.5%.
“For some older people, independent contracting and on-call positions are attractive ways to ease into retirement or earn income after they have left the full-time workforce,” according to the AARP, a public-interest group focused on older workers. “The contracting option can offer an appealing combination of flexibility and extra money, as long as the worker can get health care coverage or save for retirement in other ways. (The AARP receives funding from private health insurers.)
This is by no means the first study to show age discrimination. Previous research has also shown that managers show bias, unconscious or otherwise, against older workers.
Federal law makes it illegal to ask someone’s age in a job interview, or to discriminate against anyone over 40 based on their age. But as the latest study shows, there are many ways round these rules.
Meanwhile, data from a recent Gallup nationally representative survey program found that formal employment rates plunge once people enter their 50s, but self-employment and, particularly, “independent contractor” rates skyrocket. That’s based on surveys with 61,000 people conducted between May 2018 and March 2019 as part of the Gallup Education Consumer Pulse Survey. About two-thirds of those surveyed were over 50.
About a quarter of those still working age 55 to 59 are self-employed, most of them independent contractors, according to a separate analysis conducted by researchers Katharine Abraham, an economics professor at the University of Maryland, and Brad Hershbein and Susan Houseman at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
“Roughly one-quarter of independent contractors age 50 and older work for a former employer,” they added. This raises the issue that they have been shuffled out of the door as a result of their age — or simply to get them off the company health plan before they start costing too much money. Among those over 50 working as “independent contractors,” most told Gallup they were doing it mainly because they need the money.
Being self-employed can go both ways, experts agree. Most of those who own their own businesses like being their own boss, the researchers said, and many who work as independent contractors prefer it to full-time employment, especially because of the flexibility it may give them.
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I’ll vouch for that. employers don’t like older workers because they have too many medical problems, are too likely to challenge established ways of doing business, and take up space that could be filled by a long-term employee.
and another thing, employers don’t like hiring people they don’t know for a position that’s not designed to be temp. if you’re on the inside then it’s not likely you’ll be passed over, but if you’re not with the in-crowd then you need a lot to even be looked at. word.
and another thing. if you’ve got gray hair then everyone will autonomically assume that “you’re experienced and knowledgeable” even in a starting position on a new tasking, and if you have to learn or ask questions they’ll autonomically assume there’s something wrong with you. word.
Odd thing about the ‘taking up space’ mentality – employees that stay with a company for a lifetime are getting rarer than hen’s teeth.
I was in the IT world, and it was common for resumes to have 3 years here, 5 years there, 4 years somewhere else…, etc.
Yet management still somehow thinks that a new hire will be with them for 40 years or more.
Is this some form of management delusional thinking?
“the IT world”
some industries such as it have different dynamics – that’s why the taunt “learn to code” has traction. if you have a wild-west hired-gun skill in a no-infrastructure high-profit high-mobility industry where the “product” is virtual and no-one cares about anything except the next project completion date, then yeah, it’s possible to just walk in, put in 16 hour days for six months while you live in the parking lot, grab your share of the payouts, and walk back out with no-0ne caring or even noticing. but most stable businesses don’t operate that way.
Yes, IT is in its own world.
Before IT I drove trucks. Before trucks I worked in a warehouse.
Unless I’m batting 100% in the odd employment world, job hopping was becoming the norm in those places, and in the places I interacted with while working them.
Seems like an interesting merger of some employees who think they’re worth more than they are, combined with some corporate management people thinking they can turn employees into wage serfs.
“Unless I’m batting 100% in the odd employment world”
you might be. what other kind of person would be posting here?
Smarter than the average bear???
The affordable health care act and it’s individual mandate, written by the insurance companies themselves, is a main component to this trend.
Businesses no longer have to offer health plans since it is the individuals responsibility to possess health insurance.
What employer would want to hire 40 or 50 year olds and put them on the health plans they do still offer, making their group health plans premiums cost even more for the employer?
Answer, none?! Especially Big Business who is ALL about profit margins.
I certainly get it with regards to things like the restaurant business and others that appeal to a younger demographic. But if capable, experienced folks are being passed over for freshly-minted snowflakes in other industries, then good riddance to the companies that embrace that direction. And frankly, if someone can add up your years of experience and it is greater than 25, they don’t need to see you in person to know you are either older or lying. Tying health insurance to employers (begun under Truman), was one of the worst things that was ever done to the employer-employee relationship.
“then good riddance to the companies that embrace that direction”
dude. that’s exactly the idea. it’s called “liquidation” (by the owners – the employees call it “running the company into the ground”) and it’s profitable as all get-out because it liquidates all the money locked up by the original owners building the business into walk-away cash for the last owners.
remember cuffy miegs in “atlas shrugged”? “that which moves and feeds on the surface of a corpse”? that’s what’s going on.
gman,
Write an article about that please.
“write an article”
… what? you mean here?
it’s a well-known concept that’s been around in one form or another for a very long time, I’m sure there’s been lots of articles about it already and most of you know more about it than I do.
I think anyone who works as an independent contractor with the same company that laid them off previously, should sue the company as soon as they finish as a contractor for unpaid benefits. If you were over 40 when laid off, it’s a pretty easy case that they continued to need to get the work done by you, they just hosed you for the benefits costs.
Let’s see. Difficulties encountered in securing employment after 40, and a status as a virtual labor-market pariah “achieved” after 50. Meanwhile our rulers sound the drums to promote raising the statutory retirement age to, say 67 (or whatever), on the excuse that “people are living longer”. For a great many hapless retirees, then, do not certain unavoidable facts relating to the continuously inflation-escalated cost of living put a virtual lock on a growing portion of the population finding themselves condemned to face their “golden years” having drained life savings to the point that Social Security will serve as practically their only sources of income? Bear in mind that those are the very same people who will not able to count on maxing out contributions over a 40+ year stint in the workforce, which, by current average benefits paid out will stand to net them on the rough order of US$17K? Per year—expressed another way, pure destitution. Is it just me, or is something dreadfully wrong with this picture?
the (((elites))) think everything is just fine, all going according to plan.
I know the essence of the article is right but don’t know why. Llpoh what is your take on this?
Over – it seems to reflect what I see out there – older folks have more problems getting hired. But then so do younger ones, in many businesses.
As for me, I prefer somewhat older folks. There once was a time that I was very happy to hire fifty and sixty year olds, as they are experienced, capable, hard-working, etc. It worked well until…. it didn’t. what happened, as we began to get an average age into the fifties, was that issues with health skyrocketed – cancer, heart-attacks, back injuries, diabetes, weight-related issues, etc. began taking a heavy toll. Older folks simply have more significant health issues. Yes, they come to work every day when they are not sick, but when they get sick, or get hurt, it is often severe. And it causes very large disruptions.
Contrarily, it is rare to find a good young worker – say in the 20s. The men miss work, the women get pregnant and miss work.
There is the issue that the world is tech driven. I am pretty good at tech – I know what it does and how to manage it. But the mechanics of it have passed me by. Many folks in there 50s or 60s are well and truly in the rear view mirror of tech. I would say many are ill-suited for jobs where tech savvy is a requirement.
The sweet spot seems to be mid- to late thirties all things considered. They are stable enough at that age, and have a could decades in front of them where health is less likely to be an issue.
I was a government contractor that made stupid good money five years ago and the first $91k was tax free. Over three times what I made as an IT Project Manager in 2000. I got medically disqualified from the job. Not medically retired but disqualified – I got laid off without severance at 53. I was also military who went Guard and retired.
If I got an interview comments would be made that with my experience they couldn’t afford me, I was over qualified, or other BS. I got a job in manufacturing that was 20 years back in my experience level and management got nervous as the predictions I had made 6 months earlier were coming true. Four months prior to my layoff I predicted it to the book keeper and she said I was delusional.
I am now 58 with a college degree, 20 year military communication experience, and a class B CDL. I cannot find a job that pays more than $18 an hour. I have a $2 million 401k but I can’t touch it for another two years. I will be existing pay-day to pay-day for another 2 years then I will be living the good life again as I have access to my 401k and I get my military pension.