Old Techies Never Die
They just can't get hired after 40 in Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley may be booming again, but times are still tough for the 200 out-of-work professionals who crowd into Sunnyvale’s City Hall every Thursday morning.
Most of them hold advanced degrees in engineering and have more than a decade of experience in the technology sector. They fill all of the seats in the City Council chamber and spill out into the aisles.
They are members of Pro Match, a government-financed support group and “interactive career resource center” for educated older workers who have suddenly, and usually involuntarily, found themselves on the job market. Most have been out of work for months.
The job market “is not the same as it was years ago,” said Massimo Sutera, 45, a microprocessor engineer who was laid off last year when his firm, Zoran Corporation, a video chip maker, was acquired by the British firm C.S.R., which promptly scaled back its Sunnyvale operations, discontinuing its investment in digital television systems-on-a-chip. “It’s a mess.”
While Web-based companies like Facebook and Google are scouring the world for new talent to hire, older technology workers often find that their skills are no longer valued.
Part of the problem, analysts said, is that many of the companies shedding jobs are technology manufacturers, while most of the companies that are hiring are Internet-based.
While employment figures published by the state Employment Development Department show that Silicon Valley’s technology sector has more than made up for job losses that occurred early in the recession, the rebound has not helped everyone.
Cisco Systems, a maker of computer networking equipment that is Santa Clara County’s largest private employer, laid off 1,331 workers last year. The semiconductor sector, which used to be the lifeblood of the South Bay’s economy, has lost 4,600 jobs since 2008.
“These are people who know how to run a factory floor, but most of these new companies don’t care about that,” said Connie Buck, a career counselor who helps run Pro Match.
As a result, the South Bay’s unemployment rate, which stood at 8.9 percent in December, remains higher than the national average.
“The pace of change is just breathtaking,” said Russell Hancock, president and chief executive of Joint Venture Silicon Valley, a research group backed by businesses and local governments. “We’ve entered a strange new world. There are opportunities, but they are different. You have to be edgy and supercreative.”
“You’re not going to get a job that’s going to be assembly and filing and coding,” Hancock said, “and frankly, that can leave a lot of the older set a little bewildered.”
Hiring managers at the Bay Area’s fastest-growing technology companies were blunt. Seth Williams, a director of staffing at Google, said his firm was looking for candidates who are “passionate” and “truly have a desire to change the world.”
Brendan Browne, who heads hiring at the professional networking site LinkedIn, said his firm wanted every new hire to be entrepreneurial. Browne said that approximately 25 percent of LinkedIn’s new hires came from the company’s recruitment efforts at colleges and universities.
Lori Goler, the head of human resources and recruiting efforts at Facebook, said her company was looking for the “college student who built a company on the side, or an iPhone app over the weekend.” The company also hires more-experienced workers, if “they are results-focused and can deliver again.”
Regardless of age, Goler said, “We ask: Are they going to get to do what they love to do for fun at work?”
Some observers say much of this language is just code for age discrimination. They point to the case of Brian Reid, a 52-year-old manager who was fired by Google in 2004 — nine days before the company announced plans to go public — after his supervisors, including the company’s vice president for engineering operations, allegedly called him a poor “cultural fit,” an “old guy” and a “fuddy-duddy” with ideas “too old to matter.”
Reid sued Google for age discrimination and said that his unvested stock options would have been worth at least $45 million if he had stayed there.
Google denied the charges and asked that the suit be dismissed, calling such remarks “stray comments.” But the California Supreme Court ruled that the claims, if true, would constitute discrimination. The case was resolved out of court “to the mutual satisfaction of all parties,” said Lori Ochaltree, Reid’s lawyer, who declined to say how much the settlement was.
A Google spokesman declined to comment on the case or the amount of the settlement.
In an interview, Norman S. Matloff, a professor at the University of California, Davis, who has studied hiring patterns in the technology sector, said workers over 35 regularly face discrimination by technology companies.
Kris Stadelman, director of NOVA, the local work force investment board, which released a survey of human resource directors at 251 Bay Area technology companies last July, said that in her experience, candidates began to be screened out once they reached 40.
“Especially in social media, cloud computing and mobile apps, if you’re over 40 you’re perceived to be over the hill,” Stadelman said.
Getting hired is especially difficult for unemployed workers who have been laid off after many years at a single company, Stadelman said, because highly sought-after engineers often change firms regularly in an effort to stay on the cutting edge.
The issue of discrimination against laid-off workers has caught the eye of lawmakers. Earlier this month, Assemblyman Michael Allen, a Democrat from Santa Rosa, introduced a bill that would make it illegal for an employer to “intentionally refuse to offer employment to an individual because of the individual’s status as unemployed.”
Stadelman said that her agency encouraged unemployed workers to emphasize their achievements rather than their experience, not only in interviews but also on their résumés and LinkedIn profiles.
“I had a LinkedIn profile before, but it did not include my branding” to show strengths rather than just job experience, said Euclid Taylor, a veteran account manager who was laid off last September when his company, dpiX, a sensor array maker, shut down its offices in Palo Alto and moved to Colorado Springs.
On his current LinkedIn profile, Taylor, who has gray hair around his temples, plays down his decade of service to dpiX and advertises himself as an “analytical thinker and creative problem solver who effectively collaborates with multifunctional high-performance tea ”
Such retooling has brought success to many of Pro Match’s members, but few of them have been hired by Silicon Valley’s more glamorous tech companies.
According to the organization’s records, 253 of its 583 participants found jobs last year, but just four were hired by Google. Apple, whose headquarters is just three miles away, hired one. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter hired none.
Still, said Goler, the Facebook executive, older workers should not be discouraged from applying. She said her company wants to hire people of all ages and experience levels. “If you’ve built great things before,” she said, “you can build great things again.”
This article also appears in the Bay Area edition of The New York Times.
Michael Boyd
Good story Aaron,
I have a degree in Physics and lost my job as an engineer over three years ago. I am published in technical journals and have a Utility Patent Application US 13/332,677 on a device called a mass-spin valve or gravitational rectifier. I've been getting a little short term work [through CPUC] since then but nothing like what I was used to before. I am 55. Many of these older workers like myself own homes that are underwater and this has resulted in the high number of foreclosures in California reducing the nations property values as a result.
Fundamentally the change has to come from the top to overcome the corporate age bias that permeates the bay area. The President is responsible to make sure the EEOC does its job to protect older workers from discrimination.
"Lori Goler, the head of human resources and recruiting efforts at Facebook, said her company was looking for the "college student who built a company on the side, or an iPhone app over the weekend." The company also hires more-experienced workers, if they are results-focused and can deliver again.Regardless of age, Goler said, "We ask: Are they going to get to do what they love to do for fun at work?""
One way employers do this is by bringing in younger workers who are classified as "exempt" employees so that they don't have to pay them overtime. This gives younger workers an unfair advantage over older workers since the older works have a greater degree of responsibility outside their job and are generally paid better than younger workers. Clearly that's what Facebook wants is employees who must not only be loyal but are willing to provide them uncompensated or under compensated work gratis or they won't get the job.
Bottom line in the great Silicon Valley built on the engineering innovation of older workers like me; we are the first ones they throw under the bus.
I believe in God; and maybe this is all a blessing in disguise? Remember all the bubbles of the past I only hope these young people realize they are disposable in our corporatist world just like us older workers.
Perhaps the homeless are the real innovators; and what about the three billion people of the world who live on less than a dollar a day...now that's innovation.
I pray that my children can get a job too, but the real challenge for us all to learn to survive on less and to get our elected officials to work for us instead of the corporations.
S Hinton
Attitudes like this: "..and frankly, that can leave a lot of the older set a little bewildered.." are just lawsuits waiting to happen. I mean, really, someone who's 35 or 45 or 55 or 65 is "bewildered" by change? After living and working in Silicon Valley for 20 or 30 years? Not likely - anyone who's been in the Valley for that long has worked through multiple technological and other "paradigm" shifts. Many are among the most able as they understand how, while everything changes all of the time, particular strategies and tactics will get everyone further faster in a new environment, because they've already been there.
B G
This article is so dead on. The Valley's ideal candidate is 30 and childless. It always has been. And all this phrasing is code for that. When hiring managers say they want "every new hire to be entrepreneurial", I'm willing to bet that 90% of the people they end up hiring have never started a company. But they are probably 25 and willing to work insane hours and do whatever the boss asks of them. And get paid far less doing it.
Mitsu Hadeishi
I'm sorry, but this article is off the mark. The author appears to have gotten most of the grist for the article from talking to people in one group, this "Pro Match", whatever that is, which appears to be focused on people who are having difficulty finding work. Yet the people he talks to are people who have apparently very specialized skill sets in areas which aren't currently in demand; i.e., he's not talking to 40-something web developers who are having difficulty finding work; he's talking to semiconductor hardware engineers who aren't getting hired at Google or Facebook. I mean, why would Google or Facebook hire a microcontroller engineer?
So yes, if your skill set is completely unrelated to the work being done at these companies then I can imagine it would be difficult to find a job in the Valley. But are competent web engineers not able to get work just because they're over 40? I highly doubt that. The climate in the Valley right now is one of near desperation: the problem for programmers or designers isn't finding work, it's employers not being able to find enough people who can do the work.
Most of us who are 40-something engineers (I am one of them) who ARE working in web have no problem finding work. I get calls constantly, even though I haven't been looking for work. Recruiters are knocking down my door trying to hire me. I am at a later stage in my career: I've been CTO of multiple tech startups and I'm highly sought-after. And I've hired everyone from recent college grads to people older than I am. If you can do the work, you can get hired.
I'm sure there are some startups who are biased towards hiring younger workers --- I'm not saying that there's no age discrimination at all in the Valley. But most of us who are older aren't vying for the same jobs the recent college grads are applying for --- if you are, then you may have some trouble. We're applying for senior roles, management, CTO-level jobs, tech lead roles. If you are coming from a totally different industry (semiconductors) of course you're going to have difficulty getting hired in a completely different field, like software.
Michael Boyd
What about miss classifying engineers as "exempt employees" who have no supervisory responsibilities?? That's how these employers exploit younger engineers who don't know their rights. That's Silicon Valleys hidden sweat shop isn't it?
Mitsu Hadeishi
Nah. Engineers have always been exempt. You don't have to be a manager to be exempt:
http://topics.hrhero.com/exempt-vs-non-exempt-employees/
Michael Boyd
No they haven't you should check the law.
http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/FAQ_OvertimeExemptions.htm
Only Professional Engineers are exempt. You have to be licensed to be a PE.
Mitsu Hadeishi
I know the law, this is a very old issue. Read the page you just linked to. Computer software engineers are exempt, there's no requirement for licensing,
Michael Boyd
Computer software engineers are exempt only if they exercise independent judgement. That doesn't mean your boss tells you what code to write and your exempt. You have to be able to decide what the software code does on your own and have it licensed or patented under your name. For example if you patent your algorithm that makes you an exempt employee because you have to exercise independent judgement to that. I have a Patent that's how I know this.
I've been a programmer for over 25 years, write Code in Visual C++, Java, etc. I learned how to write code on a PDP 11 using Fortran in 1982. Being a programmer doesn't make you exempt. The only way to properly be classified exempt is to be a supervisor, manager, a licensed professional engineer, or to exercise independent judgement without some one deciding what to do above you.
Mark Dinan
(Let me preface my comments by saying that I work with software engineers, so my comments are probably not relevant for non-technical roles.)
I work as a recruiter for software companies in the Bay Area, and can tell you that skills, not age, are the deciding factor in someone not getting hired. Software companies simply do not hire people out of the Semiconductor industry - chip design has nothing to do with building web applications. I can tell you that my clients (both a couple prominent public companies and a few start-ups) could care less about someone's age than whether they have the requisite skill-set (OO programming, experience building web applications), attitude, and energy level to work in a fast moving work environment. Age has little to do with this evaluation, and experience (the right kind of experience) is highly valued. I had 4 hires start at companies in January. The youngest was 30 or so, the oldest is in his mid 50s. Another engineer is in his mid-40s. All had kept current with contemporary technologies, and were able to pass rigorous technical screens. And yes - the 55 year old was paid well: around $160k + bonus + stock.
I will not deny that discrimination happens at some companies, but there is literally no unemployment for qualified software engineers who work in web technologies. If you have a CS degree, have stayed gainfully employed at a technology company, and can pass a technical interview, there are 10 jobs for every available candidate.
Frank DeFelice
EDD (CA's Unemployment Group) is aware that's its difficult for a person over 50 to find a job. Who wants to hire someone who is obsolete? So the trick is, keep yourself up to date. Belong to IEEE groups, for example. It's OK to switch jobs a lot, but it doesn't look good on your resume, and you will never get vested. Chip designers are always in demand. Circuit designers and chip designers work together as a team. Engineers by nature are creative. Software engineers are always in demand. If you have a top secret clearance, you'll always be in demand. AS far as Google, they look for MENSA types. They don't hire Joe Average types.
If an employer tells you he's looking for someone who wants to change the world, be careful. They really want team players.
Michael Boyd
Really?...not true. I have a secret clearance, I have a patent pending and I have been published in technical journals. This isn't about skills or experience its about discrimination.
Frank DeFelice
Top secret clearances (black tickets) are priceless. Just "secret" is very common.
Michael Boyd
I've had dozens of interviews, but only 1 in 10 even ask about a clearance? Why would "top secret" make any difference then?
peewee herman
dozens of interviews but no offers... maybe it's a personality problem, Michael. Or you're coming across as desperate. Or you've got this victim complex that potential employers fear wouldn't translate to the workplace. Sorry, but I think you need to look at the intangibles if your hard skills are truly as impeccable as you claim.
Michael Boyd
Maybe that's why you use the handle Peewee Herman and I use my real name? Maybe that's what the problem is "intangibles" is just another word for discrimination, isn't it?
peewee herman
No need to get defensive or accusatory. I'm just wondering if the anger/resentment I read in your comments comes through during interviews as well.
Michael Boyd
Thanks for your concern Peewee. Sorry to disappoint you I'm not really feeling defensive, and I'm sure there is a grain of truth in what you say, so I accept your criticism as constructive, a message of love, not hate. I just try to be up front about who I am when I can, that's all. That's why your name struck me "Peewey Herman"? Sorry if I came across as defensive.
Did you know Peewey Herman is a registered sex offender. Might not look to good on your resume...LOL.
peewee herman
you may not have liked or agreed with what I wrote, but the name under which I wrote it is beside the point. Good luck in your job search.
Frank DeFelice
You need top secret to work on CIA programs, also some USAF, USN, US Army programs. Commercial companies wouldn't ask, except you have a clean background.
Michael Boyd
OK I worked for a DOD contractor, Hughes Aircraft, 10 years but decided building bombs didn't work for me. Killing people for money is against my religion.
Frank DeFelice
Well, you don't sound like a typical Christian who loves war. I worked for a company who made bomb fuzes for the Air Force in Viet Nam. Once a fuze pre-detonated and blew up an USAF jet. They were mad because the plane was expensive. They didn't care about the pilot. When you work for defense contractors, as I have, you separate your feelings from your job.
William Wagner
I don't think it's discrimination against people over 40, it's discrimination against people who don't have a current skill set.
Arnold Vinette
It happens. Time to move on and start a new career in ice skating and photography on the Ottawa Rideau Canal Skateway.
I enjoyed a wonderful career as a software developer in Silicon Valley for 16 years from 1992 to 2001. Then the technology downturn hit and I decided to watch the kids full time.
In 2006 I realized things were not gettign any better and proposed to my former spouse that we enjoy our gains and sell out of Silicon Valley and move to Ottawa, Canada.
That comment got me divorced, tossed out of the house, and 90% of my savings wiped out in the divorce settlement.
While waiting for the divorce to settle from 2006 to 2010, the entire financial market collapsed from 2007-2009. Talk about perfect timing!
In December 2009 and January 2010, Russia was also experiencing a significant unemployment problem and having experienced my own problems getting work in Silicon Valley I came up with a new financial concept called "Work Credits".
How is it that at 44 years old I cannot find work in the technology industry with 20 years of experience? Something is wrong.
Now the young kids reading this will laugh, but I guarentee you that in 20 years time you won't be laughing anymore, because you'll be in the same boat.
So how to fix this unemployment problem for those of us 40 years and older. Change the rules and move to a "Work Credit" based financial system.
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“Work Credits” puts money into the hands of the people who need it the most to support both themselves, their families, and their local economy.
By assigning people a value to do work in their society the entire society benefits. Work gets done that needs to be done and local economy benefits.
People who are unemployed and not generating income hurt the entire local economy.
How does the financial concept of “Work Credits” work?
For example citizens would be valued at $50,000 a year. (To do work that benefits their society.)
Person's value = (100 years - person's age) x $50,000
Country money supply = (100 years - median population age) x country population x $50,000
Country working capital = Country money supply x 7%
In a "Work Credit" based society unemployment, poverty and homelessness are eliminated. This is because each person is now valued at $50,000 a year to do work for their society, what ever it is and what is legal.
“Work Credits” is NOT about equality, simply that the first $50,000 of a person's yearly salary is covered by their own economic value.
People can work for the government, military, a company, be self employed, be a stay at home parent, be paid to go to school K to 12, college and university.
---------
This is a short excert of a comment I will add later.
Basically our society needs to place an economic value on people so that they can get back to work and value to their society.
What happens if we are not working?
We are NOT buying your products.
We are NOT buying your hardware or software.
This hurts the entire the technology industry.
So society needs to change the rules and start valuing its citizens as valuable economic assets.
Not to do so will hurt the entire economy.
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And for those younger kids with technology jobs right now here is a sobering piece of news for you to consider.
In the year 2019 the United States depletes its domestic oil reserves. This is only 7 years away.
If you think the older generation has it bad now, just wait to see what is coming your way between 2020 - 2030.
At least we have gasoline to drive our cars around, airplanes to fly in, trucks to bring food to our stores, fertilizer to grow crops in the field.
You are not going to have any of that.
Arnold Vinette
Ottawa, Canada
(former Silicon Valley high tech worker)
Arnold Vinette
This is a follow up comment that I hope is not too long.
The concept of "Work Credits" was actually created in Silicon Valley in Sunnyvale. Originally it was designed to the Russians solve their unemployment problems by changing how the Russian government valued their citizens to do work in their society.
However the concept of "Work Credits" works in any society.
The comment below was written for the United Nations Labour Dept.
--------------
Today the following news story was released by the United Nations on the need to create 600 million new productive jobs in the next decade by 2022.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/world-needs-600-million-jobs-next-decade-ilo-230146148.html
In reality the job situation around the world is going to become much more serious from 2018 to 2030 when the majority of oil supplies begin to run out in the United States, Canada, Russia, European countries and so forth.
I have a workable solution to solve this worldwide unemployment problem that will not only create your required 600 million new productive jobs but many more. As many jobs that are required.
The new financial concept is called “Work Credits”.
This concept has been given to American President Barack Obama, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the Noble Peace Prize committee, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, Greek Prime Minister, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou.
"Work Credits" fundamentally changes how a country values its citizens and the work effort that they can do to benefit their society.
The financial concept of "Work Credits" allows a country to revalue its money supply based on its most valuable natural resource, "Its People".
People are assigned a life time value to do work for their community, city, province and country. This value is then added to the province's / country's money supply.
People are then paid back this value very two weeks for doing work that benefits their society.
It is really a very simple financial concept to eliminate unemployment, poverty and homelessness in the country no matter how many people are unemployed, in poverty or homeless.
If there is a desire I would like to work at the International Labour Organization to begin the process of introducing and working towards a complete global transformation of world economy to a “Work Credit” based human civilization.
Sincerely
Arnold Vinette
Ottawa, Canada
Arnold Vinette
Part 1 of 3 – Work Credits – Creating 600 million productive jobs in the next decade
“The International Labour Organization sounded the alarm on the global jobs situation in its annual report on Monday and called for more coordination of fiscal policies, repair and regulation of the financial sector and support for the real economy.
The ILO says there are nearly 200 million unemployed and that another 40 million jobs need to be created each year for the next decade.”
Creating 600 million new productive jobs around the world within 10 years time could not be easier if countries implement the new financial concept of “Work Credits”.
Currently the only fiscal constraint on the governments worldwide is how they value their citizens and their ability to do work that benefits their society.
By implementing the new financial concept of "Work Credits" governments worldwide can create not only 600 million jobs, but all the jobs they need to employ the people who need jobs in their country. And not just any jobs, but productive jobs that the people WANT to do and would LOVE to do.
“Work Credits” also have the benefit of eliminating unemployment, poverty and homelessness.
"Work Credits" fundamentally changes how a country values its citizens and the work effort that they can do to benefit their society.
The financial concept of "Work Credits" allows a country to revalue its money supply based on its most valuable natural resource, "Its People".
People are assigned a life time value to do work for their community, city, province and country. This value is then added to the province's / country's money supply.
People are then paid very two weeks for doing work that benefits their society.
It is really a very simple financial concept to eliminate unemployment, poverty and homelessness in the country no matter how many people are unemployed, in poverty or homeless.
By changing the financial system of a country to a “Work Credit” based society the country's government can then assign a value of $50,000 (for example) to all of its citizens. A country's citizens now come with a built in economic value of $50,000 (for example) to do work that benefits their society. Work that can include working for the government (local, provincial, federal).
Immediate benefits to the government include a drop of 80% in government employee expenses because all government employees now come with a built in yearly economic value of $50,000.
“Work Credits” puts money into the hands of the people who need it the most to support both themselves, their families, and their local economy.
By assigning people a value to do work in their society the entire society benefits. Work gets done that needs to be done and local economy benefits.
People who are unemployed and not generating income hurt the entire local economy.
How does the financial concept of “Work Credits” work?
For example citizens would be valued at $50,000 a year. (To do work that benefits their society.)
Person's value = (100 years - person's age) x $50,000
Country money supply = (100 years - median population age) x country population x $50,000
Country working capital = Country money supply x 7%
In a "Work Credit" based society unemployment, poverty and homelessness are eliminated. This is because each person is now valued at $50,000 a year to do work for their society, what ever it is and what is legal.
“Work Credits” is NOT about equality, simply that the first $50,000 of a person's yearly salary is covered by their own economic value.
People can work for the government, military, a company, be self employed, be a stay at home parent, be paid to go to school K to 12, college and university.
Arnold Vinette
Part 2 of 3 – Work Credits - Creating 600 million productive jobs in the next decade
Government salary expenses drop 80%, military salary expenses drop 80%, public and private company salary expenses drop 80%, groups of people can now create their own companies knowing they will be paid to do so. One parent can remain at home to care and raise the children. A Stay-At-Home-Parent is now a recognized job and paid for. Children are now paid to go to school. Society now recognizes that the MOST important job a child can do is to go to school and learn. Older students are paid to go to college and university. Likewise this is their job and they are paid to do it.
It is a fundamental shift in human civilization to place a monetary value on a person and their ability to do work in their society that will benefit that society.
The financial concept of “Work Credits” does not cost society anything, rather for the first time it recognizes its people as the country's MOST valuable natural resource.
In a "Work Credit" based society it is impossible to be unemployed, in poverty, and homeless.
"Work Credits" are independent of a nation's energy reserves. When the world's oil supplies begin to run out between 2020 and 2030 a country's economy can still keep running smoothly with 100% of the country's population employed.
The financial concept of "Work Credits" is the modern financial solution for the entire worldwide economy. The solution is easy. The technology exists to do it.
Simply value people as the country's most valuable natural resource and assign them a monetary value to do work in their society.
"Work Credits" provides a solid economic foundation for local economy.
"Work Credits" eliminates the need for a welfare system.
"Work Credits" eliminates the need for an unemployment system.
"Work Credits" eliminates the need for a retirement system. People are now valued to do work until they are 100 years old.
"Work Credits" eliminates economic crime by 95%. There is no reason for anyone to steal as they now have a built in economic value of $50,000 (for example) to do work to benefit their society.
Country taxation drops 80%. The need to tax the gross income of citizens is GREATLY reduced. This benefits everyone in their country and their society.
Because everyone now comes with a yearly base economic value of $50,000 a year (for example) there is NO need to collect taxes to pay for government salaries (local, provincial, federal). A country's working capital account pays for infrastructure projects and higher salary expenses.
Public stock markets surge as 66% more of the population can now invest in the stock market and public companies.
The financial concept of "Work Credits" can eliminate the Welfare system by changing how the government values its citizens. Assign citizens a value to do work and empower people to create their own jobs to benefit their community, city, province and country.
The concept of “Work Credits” was originally invented to help the Russian people in their North Caucasus area. Then it was modified to help the 49 million unemployed Americans and 3 million unemployed Canadians. Now it is being rewritten to help create 600 million new productive jobs around the world. The concept of “Work Credits” is still the same. A country simply needs to value its citizens as its MOST valuable natural resource and assign them a value to do work to benefit their community, city, province and country.
"Work Credits" financial system. Place an economic value on the country's most valuable natural resource "It's People" and add this economic value to the country's money supply to be paid back to the people for work effort performed. It is really that easy!
"Work Credits" the economic solution to create 600 million new productive jobs around the world in the next decade by 2022.
Arnold Vinette
Ottawa, Canada
Arnold Vinette
Part 3 of 3 – Work Credits – Creating 600 million productive jobs in the next decade
Work Credits – An example using the country of Canada and the Canadian economy.
Canadian Citizens valued as the country's most valuable natural economic resource.
Proposed Value for a Canadian citizen is $50,000 a year to do work that benefits their society.
Canadian Citizen's Value = (100 years - person's age) x $50,000
Canada's Money Supply = (100 years - median population age) x country population x $50,000
Canada's Working Capital = Country money supply x 7%
Based on median age of population 39.5 years in 2011.
Canadian population in 2011 is 34,711,000.
Canadian Citizen's Value = (100 years – 39.5 years) x $50,000
Canadian Citizen's Value = $3,025,000
Canada's Money Supply = (100 years – 39.5 years) x 34,711,000 x $50,000
Canada's Money Supply = $105,000,775,000,000 = $105 trillion dollars
Canada's Working Capital = $105,000,775,000,000 x 7%
Canada's Working Capital = $7,350,054,250,000 = $7.35 trillion dollars a year
Canada's Working Capital pays for medicare, military, government and infrastructure projects.
Work Credits eliminate unemployment, poverty and homelessness in Canada.
The same concept can work in any country of the world. It is called “Work Credits”.
Arnold Vinette
Ottawa, Canada
Arnold Vinette
Original United Nations article:
Tuesday January 24, 2012
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/world-needs-600-million-jobs-next-decade-ilo-230146148.html
600 Million Productive Jobs Required in the Next Decade
GENEVA (Reuters) - The International Labour Organization sounded the alarm on the global jobs situation in its annual report on Monday and called for more coordination of fiscal policies, repair and regulation of the financial sector and support for the real economy.
"What has changed with respect to last year is that our forecast has become much more pessimistic," said Ekkehard Ernst, one of the report's authors.
"We had expected a gradual stagnation or coming down of unemployment numbers. That's not something we foresee this year any more. Even in our baseline the unemployment numbers are increasing. With a possibility of a serious deterioration of global growth these numbers actually increase very much."
The ILO says there are nearly 200 million unemployed and that another 40 million jobs need to be created each year for the next decade.
"Hence, to generate sustainable growth while maintaining social cohesion, the world must rise to the urgent challenge of creating 600 million productive jobs over the next decade, which would still leave 900 million workers living with their families below the $2 a day poverty line, largely in developing countries," the report said.
Even under fairly benign conditions such as a quick resolution of the euro debt crisis, the ILO expects global unemployment to be stuck at about 6 percent until at least 2016.
The data was based on figures for mid- or end-2011 for most countries, although ILO officials use their own estimates for the two biggest countries, China and India.
(Reporting by Tom Miles; editing by Ron Askew)
Carolyn Warren
I am a little confused; who the heck is "Connie Buck"? There is a CONNIE BROCK (http://www.linkedin.com/in/conniebrock) that is associated with Pro Match, and she never said anything about factory floors. In my experience, age, youth, and (today) lack of employment can be a barrier to employment and Pro Match can give anyone the skills to present themselves in a way that makes their job search successful. Yes, I am using Pro Match myself to aid my job hunt and it as given me a lot of skills and inspiration to focus on my goals. ((By the way, Euclid Taylor got a job))