From GD about workers over 50

[SheilaT]

2. There have been quite a few of these kinds of threads in recent years.

Apparently I am the only person in this country, or perhaps here on DU at least, who has gotten a job when over the age of 50. Actually, I've been hired three times since turning 60.

Granted, it helps that I was returning to the workforce after having been a stay at home mom for many years, but other sources would make you think that no one who isn't continually in the workforce from twenty minutes after high school or college graduation can ever hope to find gainful employment. It also helps that I was looking for entry-level work.

In a lot of cases the reality is that certain jobs are disappearing, and people, lots of people, are going to need serious re-training of some kind. It's a little like the problem of kids who go to college and major in anthropology or 17th century French poetry and then are stunned to realize that there really aren't any jobs in those fields. I'm constantly telling young people to go ahead and major in what they love, but never forget that at the end of school they're going to need to be making a living somehow.

Not that any of this changes the fact that too many jobs are needlessly disappearing, or that wages have not kept up with productivity.