What are the demographics like at your work place?

[Sylvanfan]

I work in the drafting/engineering office of a steel fabricator. It seems to me that we have a really, really old office. Especially with the way software has completely changed the way the job is done.

In our office there are 9 people over the age of 55, 5 of them are 60 or older, 3 of them 66 or older. There are 7 people between 25 and 28. There are three of us between the ages of 30 to 35...two of us can speak English! Than we have one guy in his 40's although he has 5 years less experience at the job than I do. Although there are 3 guys 55 or older who have spent less time in the line of work than I have.

This seems to indicate that there is going to be a huge shift in the work place in the coming years. The Companies corporate office which is in the same building seems to be much younger, only a couple of old dodgers, and a few friends and family of the owner who are late 30's to early 40's, and a couple token under 30's. IT which has 5 people are all under 40.

I'm a bit surprised the drafting office is so old. Last couple places I worked, I was one of the older guys...now I'm one of the youngest again. I suspect there are so few 40 year olds in this line of work, because they got sick of the poverty line pay cheque and went back to school to get a job that pays better. Another thing which I told the general manager back in June was that the people who have been there 6 years, do the job at a lower level than 3 year employees did at past places I worked.

There is also an office in Saskatoon that is far younger, and that branch is far and away the most profitable of the 6 operations under the corporations umbrella.

[return to the red]

Well, I'm not really in a large office setting at all. Working for a wholesale company there are 4 of us in our office. The manager is mid 60's, followed by the other outside sales guy at 55, myself at 32 and our inside sales guy at 24.

Personally I am responsible for the technological stuff which I don't mind at all but when the older sales guy doesn't make an effort to try to learn the new stuff and just throws it on my plate it becomes quite frustrating.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love working with the guys I do but I think the general philosophy and certain aspects within the office would be better served if some of the guys would maybe move on. The ability to purchase from the web makes customer service so much more important and that's lost on some of the older generation.

[flamesfan6]

i work at a small web company, where there is the boss, and the main graphic designer 40+, got a social media person 35+.

We got 2 graphic designers 30 and 24, two project managers that are 28 and 22, and then programmers that are 22, 30 and a new one that is 36, and im also a programmer and 22.

So guess we are rather young...and it actually works quite well.

[Phanuthier]

I work in a large, semiconductors company... kind of weird, for a tech company, my division has ~120 people, 110 of them are over the age of 35. (I am mid 20's) We were recently acquired, and it sounds like the target is to get younger. My industry tends to be quite mature, cause the main value are guys who have 5+ years experience, which there is an abundance of due to the tech boom in the 1990's.... but most are now in the 45-65 range, and there will be a real shortage in the next 10 years, which was one reason I'm in this field and hopefully I am in demand.

As an older guy (40's) once told me about how my industry works, they hire on demand.... its 100 people to train 1 guy right now, but when I am at the 5+ years experience, it will be 1 guy training 100 people... just the way the industry works.

[Rathji]

I work with a whole bunch of middle aged women and a whole bunch of women straight out of university.

[CaramonLS]

Fataing old. Basically women between the ages of 40-60. Makes me miss having a younger office.

[TurnedTheCorner]

Let me think about this...

The three managers/team leads in the group are 40s and up. Pretty sure we're looking at ~45 (M), 50+ (F) and 60+ (F).

In my immediate group, we've got 6 people counting myself. Pretty sure I'm the oldest at 38, the rest of the group is 25-30 (4M) and 20-25 (F).

In the rest of the group, there are 5 50+ (F), 3 25-30 (1M 2F), and the rest are 30-40 (5 F). I think that's everyone.

[Sylvanfan]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

As an older guy (40's) once told me about how my industry works, they hire on demand.... its 100 people to train 1 guy right now, but when I am at the 5+ years experience, it will be 1 guy training 100 people... just the way the industry works.

Any idea what the success/failure rate of new hires would be? In my line of work, if you hire 5 people, 2 of them likely pass as being able to put up with the job. Of those two, you will likely be able to retain one of them past two years because the other person at two years will likely find a more lucrative job elsewhere, and be mad enough that nothing will keep them from leaving.

Makes it tricky because the young guys learn things like software really easy. But the job fails to capture their attention to be bothered to learn it,or stay interested in it. Old guys can do the job, but are hard to train, and their productivity is much lower. What's worse, a $30,000 work station barely outperforming, the $7500 work station? Or spending 60% of your time on training to get good production 40% of the time? I know my line of work has to change it's approach to training new people.

[malcolmk14]

There are about 20 people in my group

Split is about 80/20 men/women.

Most are between 45-60 years old. Two of us are under 25.

[chalms04]

Boss' boss is M 35+
Boss is M ~25.
I'm M 25.
Minions are 2F 20-25, 4M 18-25.

[Sylvanfan]

Originally Posted by malcolmk14

There are about 20 people in my group

Split is about 80/20 men/women.

Most are between 45-60 years old. Two of us are under 25.

Yeah mine is mostly males too. Two females in My department, one of which passes as looking like a female and she's document control, which is a dead end job. Corporate has a few females, say a 50-50 split, maybe even more as everyone there seems to have a secretary, and administrative assistant. IT of course is all sausage.


Something else is that drafting/engineering is less than 50% first generation North Americans (read immigrants). Same with IT. Tells me that I'm making it too hard trying to compete with less expensive harder working competition. Communication can be challenging too. Corporate has one Chinese woman, the rest are Whiter than the first snow that probably falls later this month.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by Rathji

I work with a whole bunch of middle aged women and a whole bunch of women straight out of university.

Is it an agency or do your girls work the street?

[Rathji]

^

Pimps are very high in IT needs.

(We are a non-profit counselling and community service agency - Shrinks and Social workers)

[Temporary_User]

I work with around 30 people, around 25% of which are male.
Most people are late 20s to late 30s.
A few senior people are in their 40s-50s.

[3 Justin 3]

I work with 5 Arab guys, a Mexican guy and my white self.

Pretty much a sausagefest.

[hmmhmmcamo]

Originally Posted by chalms04

Boss' boss is M 35+
Boss is M ~25.
I'm M 25.
Minions are 2F 20-25, 4M 18-25.

field?

[hmmhmmcamo]

Originally Posted by 3 Justin 3

I work with 5 Arab guys, a Mexican guy and my white self.

Pretty much a sausagefest.

field?

[hmmhmmcamo]

Originally Posted by Rathji

I work with a whole bunch of middle aged women and a whole bunch of women straight out of university.

field?

[Pizza]

I remember being hired when i was in my mid 20's as a sales guy by the manager who was in her 40's. It wasnt until a month in when us new hires had an early morning sales meeting when we looked at each other from across the table and realized we were all ambitious mid 20's guys with the similar kind of look and business fashion.

"guys, I think our boss is a cougar"

[bubbsy]

i remember working in CGY during the summers off as a uni student in the oil industry (mostly EPC companies) and naturally i was the youngest, but everyone else had ~15-30 years on me. I felt weird in not calling people Mr./Mrs./Ms. ____, rather than by first name.

That did make things easier in choosing the industry i worked in after graduating (tech), where the avg age of people in my company was ~27 (and that was at a place with roughly 150 people).

do i regret making the move, only for the pay, as if i were working in cgy, i do think i could be raking in ~15-25k more in the oil industry, but i don't know if i'd enjoy the work as much as i do by working with people closer to my own age.