Ageism is alive and well in IT according to a survey released this week, although mounting evidence suggests the sector is still suffering a severe skills shortage.
The survey, commissioned by the Employers Forum on Age and Silicon.com, and carried out by the European Information Technology Observatory and IDC, polled 1,400 IT professionals. Two thirds said they were worried they would be too old to employ by 45. A quarter said at 40 IT workers were classified as "older workers" with some thinking the moniker could be applied as early as 35.
Despite the concerns however, the study indicates that most IT recruitment companies do not realize age is a significant factor for companies hiring staff.
'It's a cultural thing' A spokesman for the Employers Forum on Age said that discrimination may not always be obvious. "It's cultural thing. The IT sector is traditionally very young, but the irony is that there is a bigger demand for skills in this sector than anywhere else," he said.
The survey also indicated that the government, which has been trying to promote equal employment for all ages with a Voluntary Code of Practice in recent months, is failing to get its message across within the IT sector. The majority of respondents said they were unaware of the program and also thought the government should be doing more to prevent age discrimination.
The Employers Forum on Age said the government could do more. "The government should promote its code of practice," said the spokesman. "Awareness is very, very low."
The figures will undoubtedly frustrate those keen to see investment in IT. An industry report in August found that eight out of ten IT managers now see recruitment as one of their three top problems.
This is just a reality of the industry. Technology changes so rapidly that each few years a programmer has to completely re-train himself to stay competitive. Unfortunatelly, in general, the older you are the harder it is and not everyone can do it. On the other hand, number of senior/management positions is significantly less than number of "field" programmers. One from ten or twenty become a manager, some of the rest keep up the pace, the rest has to go:(.
All goverment initiatives are just useless, what can their offer - employ people without proper skills? Or stay with obsolette technology?
The only thing the goverment can do is to create more useless commites and groups and hire more people that can't find a job in the industry.