During one of my breaks I was reading the newspaper and suddenly a article about unemployment drew my attention. I am one of these people I have a job for a certain period and all the rest is based on insecurity. Maybe I will be unemployed soon again. And it is pretty hard too find a suitable job if you are over 40 as you are too young not to work and too old for a lot of employers. This idiotic theory should come to a halt as an older guy or girl can be as good as young one. The young generation is normally there only to earn some money and is furthermore not interrested in the goal of the company. Employers should use their brain as in certain jobs there are young people that do not give a ......
Last week, thousands of Dutch who have exhausted their unemployment benefits. The forty plus group, named after the maximum number of living years are living on state and federal benefits This group has kids that study, high mortgage bills and hardly any money left to spent. They sent letters and petitions to The Hague as part of a futile campaign to convince the government to pass a bolstered version of the jobs bill, now stalled and being snowed under by the formation of a cabinet. There were many common themes in their stories, but one of the more surprising was age.
One woman from Haarlem, wrote: “I am (or was) a legal secretary with several years of experience (30+ years). … I have applied to jobs that are more than one-half less than what I was earning. I search for a job each and every day. … Where do people in my age bracket go? Too young not to work but too old to work?”
Such stories of older workers too young for retirement but struggling for months if not years to find jobs have policy experts concerned as the recession drags on and long-term unemployment continues to rise. Experts say that age discrimination is illegal and severely compounding the jobs crisis for older workers, although the phenomenon is difficult to quantify or to prove, and remains under-examined by the government. This time, it is not just making it more likely that these workers will be laid off. It is also making it much harder for them to gain new positions.
Last week, a hearing called by the UWV examined the issue, attempting to determine whether part of the reason older workers have such trouble finding work, on aggregate. The unemployment rate is a comparatively moderate 9.1 percent for workers over the age of 40 It’s 3.7 percent over 55 as older workers are more likely to retire early or leave the workforce if they lose their jobs. But that hides the troubling reality for those who can’t afford to leave the labor force. They should take action now as in a few years these people you will need the most but they will be used to staying at home and try to survive. Most of them have lost their faith in politicians already a long time ago. The ones that have failed the most have the biggest mouths or have been chosen to make a new cabinet.
The unemployment rate for over 40s is at the highest level since 1948. Since the recession started, both the number of older people seeking work and the rate of unemployment for over 40s have increased more sharply than for all other demographic groups. And older workers comprise a high share of the long-term unemployed. In May, the average duration of unemployment for older job-seekers climbed to 44.2 weeks, 11 more weeks than the national average. Nearly six in ten older job-seekers have been out of work for more than six months.
There are structural reasons that the unemployment crisis is hitting older Dutch so hard. Older workers are more likely to be underwater homeowners, unable to sell their house and move away. They often have highly specific marketable skills, and seek positions more selectively. They also often have skills that have been taken out or being combined due to the recession. But too often, employers illegally presume that older workers will be harder to train, more likely to leave for other positions, less productive, less technologically able or less willing to move and so they do not hire them for those reasons. In my opinion the government should help out with this by tax profits if you hire an over 40 worker. As it is all about money anyway.
Incidences of age discrimination in firing are much clearer to see, and have risen along with the recession. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says age discrimination cases have jumped 17 percent since the start of the recession, and climbed 30 percent between 2007 and 2008. But virtually all of those cases involve layoffs, rather than the lack of job offers.
Unfortunately, policy experts fear that age discrimination in hiring, compounded by the recession, is a problem without a solution. Individuals can bring cases against individual companies, but discrimination is virtually impossible to prove, even if it is easy to see as an aggregate phenomenon. Plus, the phenomenon is so prevalent that discrimination simply seems like reality. “As a society, we’re willing to tolerate age discrimination, more so than other kinds of discrimination,” “People sense that, and it gives older job-seekers a sense of futility. Why even bother applying for jobs, or bringing a discrimination case? I won’t win.”
The Old Sailor,
