[Cougher]

"The existence of old people is not the cause of unemployment."

Perhaps you meant to post this under someone else's comment, because I didn't claim that the "existence" of old people was "the cause" of unemployment. However, if a 75 year old man retires, it opens up a job for anyone who is younger, be it a 20 year old person or a 55 year old person.

[syshum]

That is not true at all, I know many companies that offer retirement enticements (aka buyouts) as a way to simply downsize the workforce with out having to lay people off, it also helps that generally the retiree's are on the higher end of the pay scale.

In my career I have seen retirement most often used as a way to downsize not to hire young people

[Cougher]

That's part of the function of downsizing. I'm not talking about cases of downsizing.

[ipnon]

This claim begs the question of how new jobs are created in the first place.