AKA the employee rutting season.

So a young guns idea of success is to display they can show profit-growth (or more) like the previous leadership.

If the biz happens to offer a health insurance package, benching or incentivizing early retirement packages regarding the over 50s crowd to achieve cheaper rates on the annual insurance negotiations, that's a thing. That shit is done with insurance rate tables, never explicitly spelled out to the workforce. If the older folks don't bite they magically get culled. This is the effect of our for profit health care system and NO national health care coverage plan and regulations unlike most other western democracies.

Anything to make the newbie guns look profitable can and will be done under the rampant capitalism we live with. Doesn't matter how valued an employee is or can be, a targeted bottomline spreadsheet cell could trump all employees.