They want their low-cost labor, most are angling to import young engineers and technicians, in the meantime they will settle for moving to non-union states offering tax breaks.

From Boner to Jeb it seems like a top priority.

"Free trade" for all products (humans as a commodity) as it were.

Immigration and visa programs like H1 B are closely linked to the state of our employment and social welfare.

Rather than demand social and economic justice in their home countries, places like Mexico, home to one of the richest men in the world, immigration is a safety valve that keeps the pot from boiling over.

I've worked at two very large high tech companies over the past 15 years, and the first ones targeted at "right-sizing" time were the older ones with decades of experience and knowledge. This was generally not done on such a wholesale basis, though.

opening "retirement windows": e.g., retire now and we'll add 5 years to your service date. These days, they're just laying off people outright, and they're in their fifties, sometimes only in their forties. If they keep this up, engineers will soon be able to anticipate a work career of ten years or less.

So your 10,000 hours of education plus initial employment training in order to become an expert fades to 5000 hours after 10 years.

If you are not putting in 500 hours of continuing education or career development experience each year, you are not keeping up. Lots of engineers are either not in positions that continually develop new expertise or they are not putting in the 10 hours a week of outside education, so they fall behind and become obsolete.

I know 40 years of obscure technical stuff that was once marketable to a handful of corporations. Anyone need some programs written in Control Data 1700 assembler language.

and at that point, they have to move into sales, management, or out the door to start a consulting business.

Boeing is going to be using a hell of a lot of consultants to tell the newbies what has been tried before and hasn't worked because it crashes, falls off in midair, or catches fire.

There is a good reason to keep some senior staff over 30 around for a while and that's it.

needed lowering of SocSec to age 50. Contact your contacts.

We can fight about the age but let's not get perfection in the way of the possible.

What good would a tiny SS benefit do?

Also you can still work, you don't have to go on SS. It's a choice.

The jets that were built 15 or 20 years ago come with schematics the younger generation can't even read.

They don't teach that stuff in engineering school.

having experienced engineers is one of Boeing's competitive advantages (just finished a corporate case study on Boeing in school, one of my last requirements for my degree). WTH are they thinking? "Hey, I have an idea, let's get rid of the main reason we're a popular company!" Really? WTF? It's not like if the newbies don't work out, it will cost them a few dollars like some handheld device. No, it'll cost lives. Possibly hundreds of lives. I don't get this at all.

is basic MBA stuff. They have actuarial tables that tell them when it's more cost effective to dump the old guy and give his job to a green kid right out of school who is going to take several years to come up to speed. Dumping everybody at once is beyond stupid and sounds like some idiot theorist who wants to prove you don't need anybody over 30.

I predict they're going to have trouble finding anybody to fly their stuff after just a few short years.

I worked for 40+ years as an Industrial Designer. Plain old greed often overruled basic rules and common sense in the design and construction of projects I worked on. Safety was also compromised. Experience tended to negate this activity so senior people had a much more difficult time finding work. As long as corporations have more power than people this will continue. We need to impeach several members of the SCOTUS (Scalia, Roberts and Thomas).