[ben_w]

> not allowing access to those well paying jobs to the new generations

False dichotomy.

First: Employers which don’t allow people who are better suited to a role to have better chances to be hired for those roles, don’t grow as fast as those companies which do allow better candidates to get those roles.

This is basically what causes the situation in your 3rd paragraph, and is still more appropriate than relying on eternal population growth.

Second: Unless they are literally destroying value in their work (not merely being cost-ineffective, but actively damaging), then the economy still benefits from having more people working — the more value an economy creates, the more any given currency unit can buy, the more people are available to be customers, the more business can be supported by their spending, in a virtuous cycle.

This is why everyone is encouraged to work in the first place instead of jobs being treated as luxury or status symbols available to only the elite few.