Re: OT: Climate Change

On Apr 15, 8:21 am, Ian Bell <ruffreco...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
bill.slo...@xxxxxxxx wrote:

At the moment I get a respectable income for applying for jobs that no-
one will give me.

Why am I not surprised. LOL

In fact - despite Jim Thompson's unfounded claims about my competence
- the real problem is my age (I'm 64) and the endemic Dutch ageism.
They don't think that anybody over 55 ought to be working. I did
manage to get temporary work in June 2000, with Haffmans BV in Venlo
and hung onto the job until the end of May 2003, but if they'd kept me
on any longer, I'd have had a permanent position (under current Dutch
law, anybody who works for a company for more than three years has a
permanent job) and I'd have automatically become a member f the
pension fund, which would have cost the company 67% of my salary in
pension contributions, which they weren't prepared to pay.

Under the then Dutch rules, I could have taken early retirement as
soon as I'd become a permanent employee, and the pension demanded
prohibitive levels of contribution to protect themselves against this.
The relevant legislation is a mess, and while the current Dutch
administration pays lip service to keeping people at work until they
turn 65, they aren't actually doing anything to make this easier.

I've had a couple of job interviews since then, but the nearest I've
got to a job was when Philips were contemlating starting a project in
theraputic phased array ultrasound (in which I've got interesting
experience). I was told that if the project had been started, I would
have had a job - via an emploment agency - but Philips decided to put
their development money elsewhere.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

.