John McKown wrote: >​Unfortunately for me, I'm "in the hole". I'll be 63 when the company gets rid >of me. Likely too old to get hired somewhere else, too young for Medicare.
Same here in Sunny South Africa. Generally retirement age is about 60 years, but you can retire at 55 - 65 years depending on approval from employer and employee and your health and productivity/performance status. Oldies just can't get jobs, you'll have to be creative (moonlighting, extra classes, private services, contracting, etc.) to earn some money. About that "hole". You get two such "holes" in your life - First one, after you get out of school and trying to get work somehow - but the catch 22 thing is - "they" want experienced guys/gals, but how do you get experience in the first place? One way to solve is to try to do some charity or free work, apparently employers like that, but I see no proof that it can work. Then your "hole", which is the second one, but that one is more frustrating because you need to plan for at least 10-20 years, while your money is being vacuumed up by all those hungry vultures... Ok, let us go back about 'shortage of Mainframe Skills'. Here "they" want experienced skilled professionals, but "they" are too cheap to pay properly. Hence the 'virtual' shortage of skills. And the skilled persons just go overseas for a better future. It is a Cruel Crazy Beautiful world... (apologies to the singer Johnny Clegg...) Part of that song ... "You have to wash with the crocodile in the river You have to swim with the sharks in the sea You have to live with the crooked politician Trust those things that you can never see" (From: http://www.johnnyclegg.com/lyrics/ccbw.html ) Groete / Greetings Elardus Engelbrecht (48 years young...) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
