When the owner of a German engineering firm near Stuttgart lost six mid-career employees he had trained for ten years to larger companies like Porsche, Daimler and Bosch, he was at first flummoxed about where he could find experienced replacements. But after some research, Otmar Fahrion had more engineers than he could use – excellent ones.
“We…found there was a pool of engineers with the know-how, experience, dedication, flexibility and eagerness right under our noses,” he says. “There were all these engineers with great skills who were pushed off into early retirement after about the age of 50.”
Even moreso than in the U.S., Germany squanders the professional talents and experience of its citizens. A recent survey there found that 60 percent of businesses employ no one older than 50, and only about half of German men between 55 and 64 are employed.
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