g.shankaran wrote:of the 800 employees company x, 70 percent have been with the company for atleast ten yrs. if y of those long-term members were to retire and no other employee changes were to occur, what value of y would reduce the percent of "long-term" employees in the company to 60 percent.

1. 200
2. 160
3. 80
4. 112
5. 56

IMO[spoiler] A) 200[/spoiler]

Total employee : 800
Long term emp: 70% of 800 = 560

Now after reducing y no of employee from total long term employee % of long term employee become 60%
So we can write it in equation like:

60% of remaining employee must be equal to 560-y
(800-y)*60/100=560-y
(800-y)3=5*(560-y)
2400 - 3y=2800-5y
2y=400
y=200

So ans must be A

g.shankaran wrote:of the 800 employees company x, 70 percent have been with the company for atleast ten yrs. if y of those long-term members were to retire and no other employee changes were to occur, what value of y would reduce the percent of "long-term" employees in the company to 60 percent.

1. 200
2. 160
3. 80
4. 112
5. 56

Number of long term employees = .7*800 = 560.

We can plug in the answers, which represent the number of long-term employees who must leave.
Since all the values in the problem are multiples of 10, the correct answer also will be a multiple of 10. Eliminate D and E.
The remaining answer choices are 80, 160, and 200.

Answer choice B: 160.
Reduced long-term = 560-160 = 400.
Reduced total = 800-160 = 640.
Reduced percent long-term = 400/640 * 100 = 66.67%.
Too high.
Eliminate B.
More long-term employees must leave.

The correct answer is A.

To determine the correct answer, we had to plug in only one answer choice.
Very efficient.

A straightforward algebraic approach:
Since 70% are long-term employees, .3*800 = 240 employees are not long-term.

These 240 employees must be 40% of the total number after the long-term employees have left:
240 = .4x
x = 240/.4 = 600.

Since there are 600 employees remaining, 800-600 = 200 must have left.

The correct answer is A.

560-atleast 10 years (A)
let y retirs. remaining = 560-y
total remaining = (800-y)
3(800-y)/5 = 560-y
2y = 560*5 - 2400
y = 280*5 - 1200 = 200