Are Employers Using the Pandemic as Cover to Shed Older Workers?

A report by the New School's Retirement Equity Lab says that unemployment rates for workers 55 and older have exceeded those of mid-career workers for the entire course of the COVID-19 pandemic. MarketWatch columnist Paul Brandus cites numbers suggesting that employers are using the crisis to divest themselves of older workers. "Employers are not preserving the skills and experience that older workers have like they have in past downturns," said the New School's Teresa Ghilarducci. "It looks like they're being let go first, and employers are shying away from re-hiring them." Ghilarducci notes that since the pandemic began, older workers have lost jobs faster, but have been re-hired at a slower rate, creating an unemployment gap of 1.1 percent between older workers' six-month average unemployment rate of 9.7 percent and mid-career workers' rate of 8.6 percent. "It also might be a once-in-a-lifetime chance for employers to shed older workers, because the Trump administration is not enforcing age-discrimination laws," Ghilarducci points out.