Too bad many such as yourself are in an era and industry, publishing, that has been in a decaying market for decades. I think this is more about capitalism than anything else, but certainly HOW decisions are made is where the real crap waits for exposure. You didn’t name that last place and sure you have reasons for that. If that place is still in business my guess is when the efficiency a-holes came in to assist through consulting(?) how to survive, one item, never ever written down was the factor of health care, regarding any plan in existence or not and how to manage that concept into the future. It’s easier to put it this way, employees that are younger and have no pre-existing conditions including profiling family factors regarding health, plus family dispositions, are currently the largest chunk remaining at the company. Even if many such as yourself were benched and run out intentionally, the new hires after that time, if any, are probably those under their 30s or so as the largest segment of employees and considering the worthy writing people available of any age, that really doesn’t hold water.

This might seem a harsh assessment of a place I know nothing about but when companies of any kind face a revenue or profit squeeze it’s not surprising what kind of decision gets made based on risk projections. What, are we the largest western democracy without a sane health care system that average citizens can afford? Yes.

The above is not the only reason that people such as yourself could get benched or eventually let go, but stop and think, it is somehow in the calculation for over 30 people based on post collateral damage assessments?