To the extent that senior workers are, by virtue of their seniority, more highly paid, the firm gets more economic bang by terminating more senior employees. In settings where the knowledge base and technology change rapidly, recent hires may be more in tune with important new developments, giving another reason to discharge more senior workers. But potential claims of age discrimination (in locations where there are laws against age discrimination) must be attended to. Consequently, when a firm decides it would prefer to prune selectively from its more senior workers, early retirement programs, carefully crafted to avoid any adverse selection and appearance of age discrimination, may be more desirable. Layoffs targeted at older workers are also unlikely to appear distributive just. Organizations with a culture that emphasizes loyalty will obviously have an especially difficult time with targeting senior workers, as will organizations that depend on slowly developed firm-specific human capital. leia todo o artigo
a multi-disciplined approach to achieving organisational objectives by making the best use of knowledge
