The Workers Least Likely to Quit May Be the Most Likely to Be Fired
There is a remarkable contradiction in the American workplace. The employees who have demonstrated the greatest loyalty to their employers, accumulated decades of experience, and developed invaluable institutional knowledge may also be among those most vulnerable to termination when companies decide to restructure.
For employees in their mid-to-late 50s, this contradiction is particularly troubling. These workers are often at the height of their professional experience, remain years away from retirement, and have every intention of continuing their careers. Yet they can suddenly find themselves characterized as too expensive, insufficiently adaptable, or no longer aligned with the company’s future direction. And when those employees lose their jobs, they face substantially greater difficulty returning to the workforce.
What makes this phenomenon particularly disturbing is that the available research calls into question many of the assumptions underlying these employment decisions. Federal labor statistics establish that older employees remain with their employers substantially longer than younger workers. Economic research demonstrates that productivity does not necessarily decline with age and that experienced employees can contribute substantial value to their organizations. Congressional investigators have even documented circumstances in which older workers were less likely to leave their jobs voluntarily but more likely to be laid off.
The emerging picture is one of a profound employment paradox: the workers who have demonstrated the greatest commitment to their employers may be precisely the workers those employers are most willing to discard.
Older Employees Are Far Less Likely to Change Employers
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ September 2026 report on employee tenure, workers aged 55–64 had a median tenure of 9.6 years with their current employers. By comparison, employees aged 25–34 had a median tenure of only 3.0 years. Falling in the middle, workers aged 45–54 had a median tenure of 7.0 years.
These figures reflect a consistent relationship between age and employment stability. Older workers have generally maintained substantially longer relationships with their employers than younger workers. Long tenure is not, by itself, proof that an employee is unwilling to change jobs. Older employees have also had more years in which to accumulate tenure. Nevertheless, the figures demonstrate the extraordinary amount of accumulated experience that employers possess in their older workforces.
More revealing still is a congressional investigation examining the actual circumstances under which older employees leave their jobs. In October 2022, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis published an investigation of employment practices at 12 major American companies between 2019 and 2021. The investigators examined both voluntary departures, including resignations and retirements, and involuntary separations, including layoffs and the findings were striking.
In 65.6% of the applicable company-level comparisons, workers aged 50 and older had lower voluntary departure rates than younger employees. This is particularly noteworthy because retirement was included among voluntary departures. Even with retirement counted, older workers generally demonstrated lower voluntary separation rates in the comparisons examined. In other words, the employees whom employers might presume are approaching the end of their working lives were often less likely to leave than their younger colleagues.
Yet Those Same Workers Were Frequently More Likely to Be Laid Off
The congressional investigation revealed a second, seemingly contradictory pattern: Although older employees generally demonstrated lower voluntary departure rates, they experienced higher layoff rates in 55% of the comparisons examined.
Among salaried employees, the disparity was even more pronounced. Older salaried workers experienced higher layoff rates in approximately 69% of the comparisons. The investigators documented instances in which older workers were laid off at twice, three times, and even five times the rates of younger employees.
At one company in 2020, for example, 11.6% of male hourly employees aged 50 and older were laid off, compared with 5.3% of male hourly employees under 50. Yet at that same company, only 4.3% of older male hourly employees voluntarily departed, compared with 14.0% of younger male hourly employees. These figures were calculated as rates relative to the respective age groups, rather than simply counting the number of older and younger workers terminated.
The findings expose a striking contradiction in American employment practices. Older employees demonstrated greater loyalty to their employers, yet were disproportionately selected for termination. The very workers who had shown the greatest commitment to remaining with their companies were more likely to find that their companies were unwilling to retain them. Far from reflecting a workforce approaching retirement or voluntarily withdrawing from employment, the evidence reveals experienced employees who continued to invest in their careers while facing an elevated risk of involuntary separation.
That finding raises an obvious question: if older employees are more likely to remain with their employers, what justifies selecting them for elimination at disproportionately high rates?
The answer cannot be assumed to be discrimination in every instance. But neither should employers be permitted to rely upon generalized assumptions about age, cost, or adaptability without scrutiny.
The Myth That Older Employees Are Less Productive
Employers frequently justify restructuring decisions through appeals to efficiency, innovation, competitiveness, and the need for a more adaptable workforce. Implicit in some of these explanations is the assumption that older employees are less productive or less capable of contributing to a company’s future success.
The economic research does not support such a sweeping conclusion. In its Employment Outlook 2025, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) examined the relationship between workforce age and productivity. The OECD reported that workers aged 50 and older demonstrated productivity levels comparable to those of workers aged 35–49 in the research it reviewed.
The organization also identified important benefits associated with multigenerational workforces. According to the OECD, organizations with a share of workers aged 50 and older that was 10% higher than the average were associated with approximately 1.1% greater productivity.
The researchers attributed these benefits partly to the complementary contributions of older and younger workers, including greater managerial experience, accumulated professional knowledge, and lower employee turnover among older workers.
The OECD also recognized that some skills decline with age and that productivity relationships vary across occupations and industries. Its broader conclusion was not that older workers are invariably more productive, but that age alone is an unreliable measure of productivity.
That distinction is critical. A 58-year-old executive may possess decades of client relationships, institutional knowledge, and experience navigating difficult business decisions. A senior engineer may recognize a costly design problem that a less experienced employee would overlook. A seasoned manager may resolve organizational conflicts before they become expensive disruptions.
These contributions may not be easily captured by conventional productivity metrics, but they can be essential to an organization’s success. The assumption that replacing an experienced employee with a younger worker necessarily improves organizational efficiency is therefore unsupported.
The Economic Value of Experience May Exceed Its Cost
The relationship between employee compensation and productivity introduces another dimension to the problem. Older employees often earn more than younger employees because of their accumulated experience, tenure, and professional responsibilities.
Employers seeking to reduce payroll expenses may therefore view older employees as attractive candidates for elimination. But higher compensation does not necessarily mean that an employee is economically inefficient.
In a study of Portuguese employer-employee data spanning more than two decades, economists Ana Rute Cardoso, Paulo Guimarães, and José Varejão examined how employee productivity and compensation changed with age. The researchers found that productivity increased through approximately ages 50–54, while wages peaked earlier, around ages 40–44.
What they found challenged the assumption that older employees necessarily receive compensation exceeding their economic contributions. Indeed, in the firms studied, older employees’ relative contributions to productivity exceeded their relative contributions to the wage bill.
A business that evaluates an experienced employee solely by salary may fail to account for the economic value of expertise, judgment, client retention, mentorship, and the avoidance of costly mistakes. The employee with the higher salary may not be the more expensive employee when productivity and organizational value are properly considered.
The Consequences of Termination Are Far More Severe for Older Employees
The final component of the paradox may be the most devastating. When an employee in their late 50s loses a long-held position, the consequences can extend well beyond the immediate loss of wages. Older employees frequently confront a labor market in which obtaining comparable employment becomes increasingly difficult.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2026 displaced-worker report examined individuals who lost jobs between January 2023 and December 2025 because of business closings, insufficient work, or the elimination of positions or shifts.
Among displaced employees who had worked for their former employers for at least three years, 72.9% of those aged 25–54 were employed in January 2026. For workers aged 55–64, the corresponding figure was only 57.3%. That represents a difference of 15.6 percentage points and is very significant when considering the likely financial needs of individuals older individuals who are closing in on retirement years.
Consider the circumstances of an employee terminated at age 58. That employee may have anticipated working another seven to ten years, accumulating retirement savings, maintaining employer-sponsored health insurance, and continuing to earn a salary reflecting decades of professional advancement.
Instead, the employee may spend months searching for work, ultimately accepting a position with lower compensation, reduced responsibilities, or fewer benefits. For a senior professional earning $200,000 annually, losing five years of anticipated employment represents $1 million in potential gross wages alone, before considering bonuses, retirement contributions, equity compensation, and benefits.
That figure is illustrative, not an automatic measure of recoverable legal damages. Actual losses depend on mitigation, future earnings, applicable law, and the circumstances of the particular case. But it illustrates why terminating an experienced employee near age 60 can have consequences vastly exceeding the severance package offered at separation.
The Legal Problem With Treating Experience as a Liability
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) generally prohibits covered employers from discriminating against employees aged 40 and older because of their age. Most states also provide protections against age discrimination under their respective employment discrimination statutes.
Employers are permitted to make legitimate business decisions, including reorganizing departments, eliminating positions, and reducing payroll expenses. An employer is not automatically liable for age discrimination merely because an older employee earns more than a younger employee or because a restructuring disproportionately affects employees with longer tenure.
Indeed, in Hazen Paper Co. v. Biggins, 507 U.S. 604 (1993), the United States Supreme Court distinguished decisions based on age from decisions based on factors such as pension status, even where those factors may correlate with age.
But that distinction does not authorize employers to use compensation, seniority, or restructuring as a disguise for decisions actually motivated by age. When a company eliminates a 58-year-old employee who has consistently performed well, retains substantially younger employees performing comparable work, and distributes the terminated employee’s responsibilities among those younger workers, the circumstances may warrant careful investigation.
Relevant evidence may include the employee’s performance history, the employer’s stated selection criteria, the ages and qualifications of retained employees, internal communications, the actual redistribution of responsibilities, and any inconsistencies in the employer’s explanation.
Statements suggesting that an employee lacks energy, is resistant to change, is too established in their ways, or does not fit a younger corporate culture may also warrant examination, particularly when such assessments are unsupported by objective performance evidence.
The Age Discrimination Paradox
Taken together, the research reveals a troubling pattern. Where older employees demonstrate substantially greater employment tenure; investigations document a trend where older workers were less likely to leave voluntarily but more likely to be laid off. Economic research challenges the assumption that productivity necessarily deteriorates with age. And federal labor statistics demonstrate that older displaced workers face substantially worse employment outcomes.
American employers routinely describe employee loyalty as a virtue. They praise experience, institutional knowledge, and sustained professional performance. Yet when financial pressures arise, those same characteristics can become associated with higher compensation, greater seniority, and an employee whom management perceives as belonging to an earlier generation.
An experienced employee may suddenly find that decades of successful service offer little protection against elimination. And unlike a younger employee with decades remaining to rebuild a career, an employee terminated at 58 may never fully recover the economic position that took a lifetime to establish.
The real age discrimination paradox is that the employees least likely to abandon their employers may be among those their employers are most willing to abandon. If employers genuinely value loyalty, experience, and productivity, their employment decisions should reflect those values.
Protecting Your Rights Following an Age-Related Termination
Employees who have been terminated, demoted, selected for a reduction in force, or pressured to accept early retirement should carefully examine the circumstances surrounding their employer’s decision before signing a severance agreement or releasing potential claims.
A history of strong performance, replacement by substantially younger employees, inconsistent restructuring explanations, and patterns of older employees being selected for termination may provide important evidence of age discrimination.
Carey & Associates, P.C. represents employees in matters involving age discrimination, executive termination, reductions in force, wrongful discharge, and severance negotiations.
Employees who believe they have been subjected to age discrimination should consult experienced employment counsel promptly to evaluate their rights and preserve applicable filing deadlines.
For more information, please contact Carey & Associates, P.C. at 203-255-4150 or email at info@capclaw.com.
Principal Research and Legal Authorities
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employee Tenure in 2026 (September 2026).
- U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, America’s Pandemic Workforce: Persistent Structural Inequities Harm Workers and Threaten Future Crisis Response (October 25, 2022).
- Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD Employment Outlook 2025, Chapter 3.
- Cardoso, Guimarães & Varejão, Are Older Workers Worthy of Their Pay? An Empirical Investigation of Age-Productivity and Age-Wage Nexuses, De Economist (2011).
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Worker Displacement: 2023–2025 (August 2026).
- Hazen Paper Co. v. Biggins, 507 U.S. 604 (1993).
- Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc., 557 U.S. 167 (2009).