Originally Posted by
RENURPP
A very one eyed view of the situation. I read into that, you are low on the seniority list.
not all 55 plus have 40 foot retirement yatchs, not only young people have young kids and mortgages.
One thing the younger do have is plenty of time (working life) to make up for the short fall they may feel now.
I'm neither young nor old. But I've heard that bolded statement thrown around a lot in the last few weeks, and it just doesn't sit right with me.
Some of the Younger Pilots (or more correctly, Junior Seniority) are looking at losing their entire Careers here. There is no making up for that in most cases and many are looking at having to sell their homes during a Recession.
For example, losing the last year of your career is a lot less impactful than losing your entire career in your mid-late 30's. Retraining and climbing the ladder in another industry while feeding your kids and paying a mortgage is no simple task.
I'm not going to claim to know how super works in OZ, but in NZ you aren't forced to withdraw it all the day you turn 65. You can wait for the Markets to recover. If a Pilot needs to withdraw their entire super the day they turn 65 then I'm afraid to say, COVID is the least of your problems.
My Parents as an example, put a portion of their Retirement savings into "Cash" 2 years prior to retiring when the Market were up. My Fathers reasoning was to ensure they were less vulnerable to a market crash. I don't believe they touched their actual super until around age 70.
Given most Pilots are "reasonably intelligent" I would assume many approaching Retirement have done some forward financial planning and diversified their profiles to reduce the risk of crashing markets at Retirement.
That's not to say Life hasn't happened to some of you along the way. Seniority doesn't always equate financial security so no one should be told to bugger off just because of their age. Likewise, there are also some very wealthy and secure Junior Pilots.
But the notion that a "younger" Pilot losing their Job has a better chance of revery than a Senior one is, in most cases, false. And lets not get started on the cost of housing for various generations on the Seniority lists.