As you know, and contrary to what gets said out loud, bias is everywhere, certainly at every level of hiring and employment, and is handled poorly more often than not. We are in a terrible labor market brought about by the way current leadership has handled the economy and pandemic. For certain, i.e. having been studied way beyond politics or opinion, we also suffer from an economy almost entirely controlled by the wealthiest of the wealthy and constructed with a bias toward short-term gain pushed as high up the chain of ownership and as quickly as possible. This feels like every last drop of time and effort (life) is being squeezed from the workforce because the institutional support that our (grand)parents' tax dollars paid for, like early education (serving as childcare so parents can work), healthcare, retirement and banking we can count on, etc. are being stripped away to increase the investments, influence, and systemic control of those in power. Here is a basic introduction to how that works.

 

When the workforce lives in uncertainty, those providing "opportunity" have exponentially more power to call the shots. This is not lost on the owners of enterprise, especially at a global level. To achieve this, certain divisive ideas have been repeated over and over in corporate media and political messaging, and labor organizing has been ground down since the 1980s. That removes the largest force powerful enough to lift all boats, the minimum wage, and keep afloat institutions that support workers in need of healthcare, education/childcare, etc. This passes value up the chain of ownership. Studies show that this structure leads to specifically constructed outcomes, most of which are attributed to "society" as though we wanted it that way, including stereotypes about people of color and "the poor", an obsession with youth, the idea that Technology Will Save Us, and an avoidance of consequences/death, even at the planetary/ecological level.

 

Looking specifically at the prejudice against age, the drive to undermine expertise and devalue lived-experience continues because the inexperienced are typically willing to "pay their dues" (not be paid an appropriate wage for their work), are in an understandably more independent/individualistic phase (Those people are having a hard time, but I can beat the odds!), and don't know yet how much the status quo will cost them and their families. When young people take jobs offered to them because a more experienced (valuable/expensive) worker has been squeezed out, they seize a piece for themselves in a way that guarantees that The System will also force them out when they have experience. 

 

To those I help find jobs, who also happen to be Of A Certain Age:

You are already doing what I do when I realize I am being discriminated against. Every time I hear that I am "overqualified", or "surely don't really want/won't stay in this position, given your experience", or get radio silence in response to an application that moved into the realm of actual human contact and then stalled. I feel depressed and hopeless, then I talk to others who are well informed and sympathetic, read well written articles about the problem and write publicly, and find out which companies seem to be hiring more experienced folks and reward them with my purchasing power. Then I revisit my application materials, expectations about what does and doesn't matter, and online profile, from which I remove all obvious traces of age, which is only possible to a certain level, unless you have years of obviously position-relevant experience all in the last decade. Then I apply for positions for which they are obviously seeking a more experienced candidate, after which all the usual advice applies: