3/30/2009

The shifting timeline

We are still hearing complains that above 40 years need not apply for jobs and these relatively young and healthy people are getting angry and desperate. I call them young and healthy because the timeline has changed and many are not realising this. Today's 40 is yesterday's 30. And many of them are having kids in primary schools. So far the only organisation that is taking this into consideration is the civil service. More and more civil servants are working past 60, with some noticeably past 70 and 80. Why is it that the private sector is refusing to acknowledge or recognise this shift? In the 60s and 70s, people get married at 21. Today the marrying age is 30 or 35. Then people retired at 55 and died at 60. Today people die at 80 or 90 but retire at 55 with a few exceptions. Then people started to work at 16 or 18, after O or A level. Today they start work at 23/25 or later, after university and NS for the guys. They used to make babies at 18 or below 20. Now many only do this after 30. The anomaly is now a reality. The prime of a person's life is 60 and he/she can go on to 80 or 90, another 20 years to go at least. 30 is still a child wet behind the years. With improving living condition, food and health, and medical careful, people are definitely healthier today than yesterday. When will the human resource practitioners and employers understand this shift in timeline and adjust their expectations? Perhaps we are in a state of transition. The first batch of healthy 60s will come from the baby boomers, or maybe the later baby boomers. Or shall we bring out all the million dollar 'Yodas' in the public and private sector to prove this point? They are many of these hiding in their top floor or penthouse offices and calling the shots, still alive and kicking in their 70s, 80s and perhaps 90s.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe that has a bearing on the fertility rates here. The older they get married, the less likely they will want children, or can have children.

The fact is that the older one grows, the more experience one gets regarding the ups and downs of life and perhaps they realise that having children is a great burden in this high cost-of-living society.

Moreover, it is also going to be a burden on the child, the pressures right from early school, to the uncertainties of working life, to the struggles of survival in old age.

They only tell you to have children, but they have little sympathy for your problems.

Lost Citizen

Anonymous said...

The majority of Mankind don't understand that it is very unnatural of humans to work. We should be like cows, grazing quietly and munch some grass when hungry.

Man has to work because of greed. If there were no greed, everyone would be happy, contented by just rearing some chickens and planting some veges to survive.

I envy Robinson Crusoe. His, is a Life worth living. We are just slave rats spinning endlessly in a sphere going nowhere.

What is a $20 million dollar bonus? You can't bring your wads of paper money when it's time to go. Come in a baby suit, go also in a baby suit. Ok, Ok, a few million bucks can buy you a solid gold coffin. But that's about it.

Wally Buffet Jr.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

Unless you're doing hard manual labour, then age is not really an issue. Of course we've all seen very strong old people who can still work a full day in the hot sun, but they are not the majority.

In the private sector, all you have to be (in your self-interest) to get a job is offer some "value" to the person who's "buying" (in his self-interest) your value-offering in exchange for (usually) a universal medium of exchange — money.

These days and in the future the mind is where the value is created. I.e. modern jobs are essentially "brain power" jobs, and the vast majority of people have mental capacities which allow them to have market value right up to a very ripe old age — virtually until your mind gives way.

Anonymous said...

It is true nature to eat, mate and sleep. Anyone wishing to have more than the basics will have to work for them. Don't complain when one wants more than what's needed.

Remember, humans are born naked and rot and smell foul like any other animals.