Younger employees are far more likely than older workers to have a negative view of the aging American workforce. This is according to a poll, of 1,400 adult workers conducted by the Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Respondents were asked whether they thought people staying in the workforce longer was mostly a good thing or a bad thing for American workers in general. Key results include:
- 30 percent of those age 18 to 49 perceived it as a positive, compared with 50 percent of those over 50;
- 39 percent of younger workers saw the development as a negative, compared with 19 percent of older employees
- 30 percent of both groups said the shift makes no difference.
Source: Human Resource Executive, June 17, 2019. Link.
Younger people blaming older workers for keeping them from climbing the corporate ladder is not a new trend but, it’s one rooted in falsehoods” – Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist at Glassdoor
INSIGHTS: A colleague once said, “I couldn’t wait until I became one of the good old boys who always seemed to know so much. But, once I got there I found out they didn’t really know anymore than anyone else . . . they had just tried to solve the same problems over and over, so they knew what would not work.” He added that less experienced persons could not fathom operating without all the streamlining his generation had built to make work more efficient.
Older workers may not have the “go” of the younger ones, but they often know what not to do and therefore conserve workforce energies for actions more likely to move things forward.