>Harsh and an obvious problem for those over 40 and industry in general, but is this simply the natural result of companies optimizing for maximum productivity at the lowest possible cost to them?
If we go one step further, it's the result of society allowing them to "optimize for maximum productivity at the lowest possible cost to them" all other things (product quality, workplace safety, agism, sexism, environment, health safety, etc) be damned.
Addition: I think shareholders, and the shift of moral and motive center from a person or board to an blob of people is one of the worst structures that's allowing for the above.
I just love this meme that 26 year olds making 3-4x median salary, getting pestered daily by recruiters offering five-figure signing bonuses, are somehow being taken advantage of.
After a master at $50k per year and only if they live in one of the two most expensive cities in the world, where twice the national median will not afford them a one bedroom flat in 20 years.
The multiplier of the median salary doesn't matter. Money is not an absolute, it's a relative (exchange) concept. It's what they make in value for the company vs what they get back that matters.
Plus, making $100k/year but working 12+ hours day is worse than what just doing the division would show (that it amounts to $67/year of 8-day work) because the toll of those extra hours on personal life, health, family, personal development, opportunity cost, side business etc is not linear.
Most are not tho': they are being paid mediocre cash salaries with seemingly vast "stock options", and working 80 hours a week. Experienced engineers treat stock options as lottery tickets and insist on fair cash salaries.
I once calculated my $/h when I was working a deathmarch (80+ hrs per week for over a year). It came out to considerably less than what my brother was making per hour working an assembly line in a factory.
If we go one step further, it's the result of society allowing them to "optimize for maximum productivity at the lowest possible cost to them" all other things (product quality, workplace safety, agism, sexism, environment, health safety, etc) be damned.
Addition: I think shareholders, and the shift of moral and motive center from a person or board to an blob of people is one of the worst structures that's allowing for the above.