My father in law is an EE. He was forced out of his job a few years ago (in his mid fifties). From what it sounds like, many of his similarly aged coworkers face the same treatment - if you don't hit a certain level of management by the time you're middle aged, promotion paths become closed to you and eventually you become marginalized, because there are so many new graduates coming in willing to work for close to half of what the experienced EEs command for salary.

He wasn't able to find another EE position, except at a small company as a part-time tester. He's retired now, mostly because he gave up trying to find fulfilling work.