工程師，你遭遇了年齡歧視嗎？

　　Age survey results： Life‘s good if you’re employed

　　Brian Fuller

　　For engineers， ageism is in your head （unless you‘re unemployed）

　　Age doesn’t appear to be a negative influencer in the electronics industry， unless you‘re looking for a job. And then， the numbers don’t lie.

　　That‘s the take-away from the latest EE Life survey we fielded last week， as part of a series of pieces on engineers and the workplace.

　　Nearly 63 percent of the 800 respondents said they’ve never felt they missed out on promotion or other opportunity at work because of their age. Nearly 90 percent said they‘ve never actually been told that age was an issue in the workplace （not surprising， given today’s stringent HR rules， but I wanted to test the question anyway）。

　　Have you ever felt you were denied a promotion or other opportunity （salary increase， team assignment etc.） at your company because of your age？

　　Yes 37.06%

　　No 62.94%

　　Where things get interesting is in this question：

　　“In applying for a job at which you believed you were qualified， have you ever felt you were turned down because of your age？”

　　Almost 45 percent of respondents said they have felt they didn‘t get a job because of their age.

　　In applying for a job at which you believed you were qualified， have you ever felt you were turned down because of your age？

　　Yes 44.43%

　　No 55.57%

　　Now clearly these two questions are subjective in nature because they ask how respondents “felt.” And no one in reality is going to tell a job applicant that he or she was turned down because they were old.

　?。╓e did try to get at this by asking whether you’ve ever been told you were “over-qualified，” which is often seen as a euphemism for age. Fifty-six percent of respondents said they have been told this. However that could be for other reasons， such as an applicant， long unemployed， applying for a job below his or her traditional pay grade just to get a job）。

　　Slicing the data by age reveals some variation in response. Younger engineers （those in their 20s and 30s） are far less likely to believe they‘ve been passed over for a job or a promotion. The delta narrows with age， but only those who listed their age as being 60-69 feel very strongly they did not get a job based on age （58 percent feeling they have been passed over）; Of those over the age of 70， only 48 percent felt this way.

　　Ethnic diversity

　　We also wanted to test how our exceptionally diverse profession views ethnic background， and the results suggest that， for the most part， ethnicity is little barrier to advancement or jobs. Only about 15 % of respondents to questions about losing out on a job or a promotion felt that happened to them because of their ethnic background.

　　What’s the lesson？ Maybe time will help. I can only imagine what the responses to similar ethnic-background questions might have been 30-40 years ago. Could it be that the responses on questions about the impact of age change as well over the coming years？

　　Truth in numbers？

　　Perhaps so， but then again it‘s never fast enough for older engineers who are struggling to find jobs after the Great Recession. In fact， according to the survey， of the 16 percent of all respondents who said they are currently out of work， half have been jobless for at least two years. Of that， 80 percent are over the age of 50.

　　Indeed， 60-80 percent of all survey respondents who have been unemployed for any length of time are 50 years or older.

　　This was perhaps the most poignant comment about the hundreds of responses：

　　“Quote from supervisor： ’”This is the first time I had someone older than me working for me.“ Later quote from different supervisor： ”“Have you considered retiring？”

　　Laid off after 37 years; after heart surgery; notified by HR; no contact or discussion or meeting with anyone in management chain.

　　It‘s a cruel world out there. Life isn’t fair; get used to it.“

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