‘Payroll cholesterol’: Why mid-career professionals are losing their jobs

Mid-career professionals are not losing jobs because they lack skills or are not contributing to the business, but because they are—which means they’re costly.

Indian influencer Rajiv Talreja said companies are laying off mid-career professionals because they are what the businesses’ finance team calls “payroll cholesterol.”

Once seen as assets, those in their 30s to 50s are now viewed as costs.

3 reasons companies are kicking mid-career professionals

India Today reports three converging forces explaining why mid-career professionals are increasingly being pushed out.

First, cost pressure. Cutting senior salaries, which are usually higher than entry-level pay, means higher immediate savings for companies. Without the “payroll cholesterol”, organisations get leaner.

Second, technology acceleration. The era of artificial intelligence-driven efficiency is eating away routine work and roles that can be partially automated are increasingly harder to determine.

Lastly, age bias. While recruiters are not bluntly saying mid-career professionals are too old or too rigid to learn new ropes in the company, they hint in their hiring that they prefer those that are “dynamic,” “high-energy,” or demonstrate “younger leadership.”

Although companies insist AI does not take away jobs, a surge of company layoffs last year, especially in the tech sector, indicates otherwise.

Among them were Facebook owner Meta, which cut 600 jobs in its AI unit, and Amazon, which let go of 14,000 white-collar employees in October.

As per sources familiar with the matter, the American multinational technology company would have started another round of layoffs already, possibly cutting about the same number of employees.

Other big companies that trimmed staff were Accenture, Adidas, Bloomberg, IBM, Oracle, and Salesforce.

Yet, a Resume.org survey found that more than four in 10 companies are seeking hires who can “learn new tools and technologies quickly,” suggesting a preference for younger workers. /TISG

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