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Feds: IBM did discriminate against older workers in making layoffs

wraltechwire.com

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Re: Feds: IBM did discriminate against older workers in making layoffs

#51

Post by jedberg »

x87678r wrote: post #32

Median age at Facebook is 28? Wow. https://www.businessinsider.com/median-tech-employee-age-cha...

It's interesting to me that Netflix isn't on that list. Maybe because it ruins their stats.

Totally anecdotal but I wouldn't be surprised if it were up there in the mid-high 30s.

I'm having trouble thinking of anyone I knew there under 30 that wasn't in HR, recruiting, support, or facilities. There were just a few engineers under 30, and definitely a bunch over 50. And of course management was almost all 35+.

Re: Feds: IBM did discriminate against older workers in making layoffs

#52

Post by holidayacct »

This happens repeatedly and isn't anything new. This happens because there are a bunch of mentally ill people running tech companies that want jobs to be about "belief".

They don't want older people in tech because they want to empire build with the latest and greatest insecure technology.

They want to create frustration engines with poor engineering practices they older tech workers won't put up with it. The goal is to make technology more difficult so they can slowly re-train you to go to other people and hate all technology. This is a real thing and has burned out so many software engineers you'd be shocked at how many of them don't know their manager was the person who purposely made their job difficult to burn out another software engineer.

They want strange conspiracies about what the software actually does that older workers don't need to put up with (because some of it is illegal). If you're good at reading source code and figure out what they are actually doing in the source code, in some cases companies blatantly selling software that doesn't do anything they are selling their customers on. In some cases people inject code into a repository when no one is looking, so they can run side businesses using the company infrastructure. There are a ton of older tech workers who read every line of the source code and when they start asking too many questions people freak out and fire them to maintain a conspiracy.

This happens for all sorts of reasons.

Re: Feds: IBM did discriminate against older workers in making layoffs

#53

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

syshum wrote: post #22
duxup wrote: post #20

A fellow older classmate of mine and I were looking for work after changing careers. We were talking about his recent interview when he got a call from the recruiter and put her on speakerphone. She told them they were going with someone else because they thought the other person "fit the culture" better. He asked if she could give some feedback on what that meant and she flat out said "Some people thought you were t…

I dont blame your buddy for not pursuing legal action, the legal system sucks. That said companies feel confident doing that largely because they know most people will not peruse legal action and even if they did they likely have the money to bankrupt them long before it ever got to a jury

You can still write scathing glassdoor reviews and send a letter to the state AG who should take an interest in such things.

Re: Feds: IBM did discriminate against older workers in making layoffs

#54

Post by maerF0x0 »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #48
socrates1998 wrote: post #17

The big tech giants have used this marketing ploy that "older workers don't understand new tech" to undercut them at almost every opportunity. I honestly have no idea why they are allowed to get away with this in the media and public opinion. Maybe because older people don't know new tech, so they think older programmers don't know it either? It's insane to me that an older programmer with decades of experience and m…

The math is simple: Replace a senior salary with 2 H1Bs for (hopefully) 1.5x productivity. 2 weeks vacation, no family, and no health issues makes for the ideal servant.

Incoming rant.

Plus the government is in on it. They're effectively handing a subsidy to coporations who can jump the hoops versus those who hire and then train locals.

The pitch goes like this: give the immigrant the promise of America if they just serve the masters for ~10 years (or forever if you're the wrong race of immigrant[1]), keep them subservient by continuously threatening deportation at the loss of employment (short window to rehire). Limit the max number of H1B years to ensure increasing dire circumstance. Don't give them representation (despite taxation) so they can't feedback on the system.

Now, an H1B doesn't have always have all the features of a millenial, such as they usually don't have student debt, but the student visa can fix that.

[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/the-employment-gr...

Re: Feds: IBM did discriminate against older workers in making layoffs

#56

Post by errantspark »

logicslave wrote: post #39

Leetcode is veiled ageism where those who pass have inordinate amounts of free time to study nonsense

Not exactly, but ageism is probably a welcome externality. The value of leetcode is mostly in helping hiring-people wash their hands of some responsibility.

Re: Feds: IBM did discriminate against older workers in making layoffs

#57

Post by olalonde »

socrates1998 wrote: post #17

The big tech giants have used this marketing ploy that "older workers don't understand new tech" to undercut them at almost every opportunity. I honestly have no idea why they are allowed to get away with this in the media and public opinion. Maybe because older people don't know new tech, so they think older programmers don't know it either? It's insane to me that an older programmer with decades of experience and m…

> Tech companies think they can get away with it because they do exactly what IBM did, fire all the old hats, then hire back the ones they really do need at cheaper, contractor rates.

If it was that simple, why don't they use that strategy with young workers as well? It would be even easier to make up justifications (e.g. lack of experience).

To me, it seems plausible that you would find a correlation between people laid off and their age, absent of systematic ageism. And if there really was systematic ageism, IBM is just shooting itself in the foot. It's possible but not a given.

Re: Feds: IBM did discriminate against older workers in making layoffs

#58

Post by xrd »

I get it. I understand that it is hard for a big company to avoid thinking and optimizing for all the costs associated with older employees versus a younger employee, especially H1Bs.

But, why not use the pulpit that comes with tech prestige (is it now all gone?) to lobby for universal healthcare, and other ways to socialize those costs? If things like healthcare and a sane social security system were in place, wouldn't that even the playing field and be a win for everyone? I'm surprised I don't see more US companies arguing for changes that would help them.

Re: Feds: IBM did discriminate against older workers in making layoffs

#59

Post by josho »

commandlinefan wrote: post #26
socrates1998 wrote: post #17

The big tech giants have used this marketing ploy that "older workers don't understand new tech" to undercut them at almost every opportunity. I honestly have no idea why they are allowed to get away with this in the media and public opinion. Maybe because older people don't know new tech, so they think older programmers don't know it either? It's insane to me that an older programmer with decades of experience and m…

> cheaper, contractor rates. Are contractors cheaper than permanent employees? I always thought it was the opposite - that's why so many positions are "contract to hire". They'd rather have a perm employee, but they want to deal with contracting for a few months just to be on the safe side.

Many companies hire contractors because they are seen as a capital expenditure on the finances. While employees are classified as an operational expense.

This has several accounting benefits, and in some jurisdictions makes it easier to dismiss the employee/contractor.

Re: Feds: IBM did discriminate against older workers in making layoffs

#60

Post by x87678r »

commandlinefan wrote: post #26
socrates1998 wrote: post #17

The big tech giants have used this marketing ploy that "older workers don't understand new tech" to undercut them at almost every opportunity. I honestly have no idea why they are allowed to get away with this in the media and public opinion. Maybe because older people don't know new tech, so they think older programmers don't know it either? It's insane to me that an older programmer with decades of experience and m…

> cheaper, contractor rates. Are contractors cheaper than permanent employees? I always thought it was the opposite - that's why so many positions are "contract to hire". They'd rather have a perm employee, but they want to deal with contracting for a few months just to be on the safe side.

Roles I've seen pay the same, but FTs benefits of healthcare/401k/vacation are worth 50k/yr.
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