Study Shows Average Age of Management Positions Now 25 Years Old

Generation Y people born after 1981 tend to climb to managerial posts in companies at a relatively much younger age than their older counterparts. Employees born after 1980 tend to first become managers at an average age of 25.3, compared to 31.8 for their counterparts who were born in the 50s. The Y-generation people seem to climb the career ladder faster as they tend to have stronger ability to learn and a stronger work ethic, according to the poll.

Most of the business executives said they do not particularly consider employees’ ages when they are choosing new leaders within their corporations. They choose according to negotiation and coordination ability. The ability to solve problems and professional abilities are more important factors when they are considering promotions.

Interestingly enough, the Y-generation people do not necessarily perform well in management terms. According to company executives, managers aged 39-48 were the best performers.

Robots could fill the jobs of 3.5 million people in graying Japan by 2025.

Japan faces a 16% slide in the size of its workforce by 2030 while the number of elderly will mushroom, the government estimates, raising worries about who will do the work in a country unused to, and unwilling to contemplate, large-scale immigration. The current fertility rate is 1.3 babies per woman, far below the level needed to maintain the population, while the government estimates that 40% of the population will be over 65 by 2055, raising concerns about who will look after the graying population.

Japan could save 2.1 trillion yen ($21 billion) of elderly insurance payments in 2025 by using robots that monitor the health of older people, so they don’t have to rely on human nursing care. Caregivers would save more than an hour a day if robots helped look after children, older people and did some housework, it added. Robotic duties could include reading books out loud or helping bathe the elderly. Mommy, I want Yuki 2.0 to wipe my @**.

The New Economics of Outsourcing

Companies that traditionally rely on India for offshore IT services have been looking for that something beyond India for years, citing such reasons as high employee turnover and unreliable communications. But the search has taken on added urgency recently, especially for U.S. companies, as a weakening dollar has boosted the cost of IT services priced in India’s rupee. Over the past five years the dollar has declined about 16% against the rupee. High real estate costs and expectations for tax increases also have diminished India’s allure.

As outsourcing to India becomes more expensive, North American companies are more inclined to “nearsource,” keeping work in the Western Hemisphere, where they can operate in a closer time zone. In years past a company could save 40% to 50% by hiring Indian firms to handle IT and other services. Should the U.S. dollar continue its descent, that differential would shrink to 10% to 20%.

How much longer the world’s companies will have financial incentive to outsource to India is a matter of lively debate. India’s “advantage as an offshore location is fast eroding—its attractiveness takes a hit with each passing day,” analysts at Forrester Research wrote in a January, 2008, report. Forrester catalogued some of the well-known challenges, such as increasing staffing costs, turnover and strained infrastructure.

The benefit of doing business, from a labor-cost point of view, in such locales as Bangalore, India, will disappear for some companies in three to four years. Indeed, while costs are increasing in India, the country is generally less expensive than Latin America and most other locations, especially for companies that don’t require high-end software developers. The average annual salary for an IT worker in the U.S. is about $75,000. In India it’s about $7,779 and in Argentina, it’s slightly higher at $9,478. In Brazil, the annual wage jumps to $13,163, and in Mexico it climbs to $17,899.

Increasingly, companies want a provider that can nimbly shift tasks and labor among its own global network of work centers. The dollar’s decline aside, even Brazilian firms are benefiting as companies spread their outsourcing around. The real question, if you’re going to sign onto somebody for five to seven years, is do they have a vision for how they’re going to move work around the network.

Workers in certain industries can have more comfort in knowing that, even if they are fired, there is so much demand they should be able to find another job very quickly.

Talk of a recession and creeping unemployment rates are enough to make you wonder: Where can you find stability in unstable times? Kiplinger consulted career experts and combed through job trend data to come up with five industries that should provide safer havens to workers, no matter what the economy is doing. No matter what field you work in, you have the possibility of losing your job. But there are things you can do to protect yourself and increase your odds of getting another job, just in case.

Healthcare  
Many of the nation’s fastest-growing careers are in the health care industry, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. An increasingly aging population fuels demand in this field. Some specific jobs with stable prospects include doctor, nurse, pharmacist, physical therapist and physician assistant.

Education
Teachers for any grade level who specialize in high-demand fields such as math, science or bilingual education should have an easier time finding and keeping a job. And the outlook for college instructors looks stable, too. College enrollment is rising as the number of 18- to 24-year-olds increases. Some areas of the country are more stable than others for teachers because education jobs follow population trends. So teachers in fast-growing states in the South and West, such as Nevada, Arizona, Texas and Georgia, will have more opportunity than in slower-growth areas in the Midwest and Northeast.

Security
Crime doesn’t stop in a recession. That makes security jobs, such as police officers, detectives, private security guards and international security experts, a good bet. Layoffs in this industry are rare. In the off-chance law enforcement officers lose their jobs to budget cuts, they have little difficulty finding jobs with other agencies because demand is so high.

Environmental Sciences
The current “green” movement reaches far beyond changing your light bulbs to fluorescents. It’s also translating into a solid career choice. The BLS expects environmental careers, including ecologists, hydrologists, environmental chemists and others, to grow 25% over the next decade.

Government
Some of the most stable jobs around are within the federal government, where firings and lay-offs happen at just one-quarter the rate in the private sector. One reason: Even in hard economic times when big businesses are forced to downsize, the government must carry on. And only one in every 5,000 non-defense workers is ever fired for poor performance each year. Crazy odds! Due to an increasingly aging workforce, the government is doing a lot of hiring lately, especially among the 20-something crowd.