One obstacle facing older workers is that they’re too expensive; we say “Think again.”
➔ Among the many hurdles facing older job seekers, getting fair compensation ranks pretty high. Employers either think that you’ll be too expensive and try to cajole you into accepting less pay, or they believe that they can hire younger, less experienced applicants for a lot less money.
While those things may be true, they don’t tell the whole story. There is another side to that coin which could end up costing the employer a (pardon the pun) pretty penny.
What are the long-term costs?
The comparisons between salaries for younger and older workers are not without basis. But the other factor to consider is the cost of hiring a new employee. Several studies – including those from the National Council on Aging and the Bureau of Labor Statistics – show that older hires are far more likely to stay with that job for a much longer time.
Younger workers generally are notorious for staying with a job for roughly three to five years while older employees have demonstrated their tendencies to remain on the job at least twice as long. In fact, studies show that the older the worker, the longer they are likely to stay with the job.
According to the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM,) the cost of recruiting and training a $40,000/year new manager can range from $20-30,000. Taking this into account, if the employer is forced to absorb those costs every three to five years, very quickly that can become a very expensive proposition.
By choosing to hire an older worker, however, the employer can avoid those additional hiring expenses which should balance out any salary differences between older and younger employees.
When a potential employer raises the issue of how much more expensive older applicants are, your answer is to refer them to the data we mentioned above. By being more likely to stay on the job, you just might be the logical and economical choice.
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