Right.......what you are describing is simply age discrimination and should be ruled as such. Everyone in this country is going to be an over 50 worker at some point if they live long enough.......they shouldn't be able to get rid of competent older workers simply because it's cheaper.

There was a term thrown around a few years back when a lot of folks were being let go: "retiring at your desk." If you work with someone who fits the description you know what I mean, and some of those folks were in the first wave of recession reaction layoffs. You don't like to see anyone lose their job, but when you know you are taking up their slack on the regular then you get it.

Ideally, older workers should be happily mentoring and training those who are coming up to replace them. Unfortunately, that might mean training your replacement only to be left go at 50 or 55 with several years left until retirement because your replacement works for less and has a less expensive benefit package to offset their lack of experience. I know that many banks would forego the 30 or 40 years of experience that some of us have to be able to cut the cost of a department that in simple terms generates no income. It's a horrible position to be in. I pro-actively switched jobs a couple of years ago in part to try to avoid that scenario - hopefully it pays off.

if any job terminates you simply because you are over 50 and replaces you with a younger worker, that is age discrimination and 100% actionable in court, where you should take them and sue their rear-ends off...when you win and now own the company, you can then fire the clowns that let you go to begin with.

this was a poorly written article with many gross generalizations, but simply firing someone for age is not allowed.

I always wonder how that point gets proven or disproven......in a court of law that is....because no company is stupid enough to just say "we are firing you because you're over 50". I mean, it seems like it could easily become a game of "i say, you say" in a court of law. "They fired me because i'm over 50". "We fired him because his job performance wasn't measuring up. Check out these trumped up peformance reviews if you don't believe us".

Just curious.....it just has always seemed to me that if a company was bound and determine to fire you for "cause", they could make it appear so.

I don't know about the rest of you but my location (CNY) specifically in Banking, we can't keep the younger folks, so those of us over 50 are pretty much carrying all the weight. They come for a very short time and move on which we all know is a generational thing.

This area has seen most of it's community banks be sold to larger regional ones who do not have their headquarters local, so skilled employees are a rare find.

raitchjay is right about 'cause'. You can bet your bottom dollar that especially any company with an HR department is going to make sure they have whatever they need to justify forcing an older worker out so they won't get caught in court. They also rely on the fact that the now unemployed person doesn't have the financial means to pursue a case that they can draw out intermitably.

The ADEA actually protects anyone 40 or over. These are very difficult lawsuits for an employee to win. There is no chance if the employer is a National Bank.

My name must have fallen through the cracks at the banks I have worked for, I am 50 plus 19 and counting. No one has suggested yet that I hang up the spurs and ride off.

Pale, you are so old they forgot you're there....just a part of the furniture by now

I worked for a large telcom that will remain un-named but has a logo that looks like the deathstar that while I worked there would routinely scrub the work force of anyone getting close to retirement so they would not have to pay full benefits. They would call it early buy out. They fired my fired big Doug twice only to realize they had to hire him back as he was the only one with knowledge of certain technologies the company needed. Of course he got more money to comeback both times but most where not that lucky.