Feds: IBM did discriminate against older workers in making layoffs • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by asdasfasdfasdf » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 6:54 PM UTC

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.

Yeah this is it in my experience. It looks like they're optimizing for age, but they're really optimizing for cost and ageism is a side-effect.

I've seen this happen at almost every job I've had: Senior engineer with 10+ years experience works 40-50 hours a week and gets laid off. Senior engineer is opinionated about how things are implemented and can come across as "difficult." Two junior engineers are hired for about the same cost and are pushed to 60+ hours a week. They'll do literally anything you tell them to. Non-engineer management sees a win but then eventually gets mad about codebase issues like it's unrelated, and end up churning through juniors trying to fix it.

Another alternative is outsourcing of course, in which you can end up with a small team for the short-term cost of one senior engineer... and a lot of the same problems with the junior route.

It feels like one of those risk problems where people are happy about the short-term gain but fail to look far enough ahead to see the long-term issues.

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

#62

Post by x87678r » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 6:55 PM UTC

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…

> after changing careers.

This is a big one. There are arguments for not hiring older experience programmers, then there is a different issue about hiring older people that want to be new programmers. I'd think the second group wont have much hope of getting hired.

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

#63

Post by tylerFowler » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 6:56 PM UTC

liability wrote: post #2

Not surprising. Years ago one of my (gray haired) mentors opened my eyes to ageism in this industry by asking me to pay attention to how many programmers in the office have gray hair. Once you start looking for it, it becomes obvious that age discrimination is rampant. Some blame the young workforce on the industry being young, but the industry is decades old at this point so I don't think that excuse holds water.

It's also regional, I started my career at a startup in Kansas City, where the situation is completely the opposite. The average age of the company was 40 or so, particularly in engineering.

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

#64

Post by LostTrackHowM » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 6:56 PM UTC

olalonde wrote: post #57

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…

If it was that simple, why don't they use that strategy with young workers as well?

Because the young workers are already cheaper. Hard to out-cheap them. (Obviously not their fault.)

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

#65

Post by wolco » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 6:58 PM UTC

olalonde wrote: post #57

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…

To hire back young people on contract would cost more than the entry level salaries they hold.

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

#66

Post by freetanga » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 6:59 PM UTC

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…

I think you are spot on. I run a medium sized IT Team (400 employees plus 600 external contractors) and I like to go against the grain: In the past 12 months I have hired 15 people, and 13 are over 52 years old.

Most have been laid off, got a juicy check that translates into a good nest egg, but not enough to make it their only source of income until retirement. A good job with a steady (but lower than before) income makes them very happy, and provides us with very senior people for key positions.

However, it was hell to get it past HR, as they all saw it meant we were not a “agile” IT department. Facepalm.

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

#67

Post by xienze » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 7:02 PM UTC

olalonde wrote: post #57

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…

> If it was that simple, why don't they use that strategy with young workers as well?

Two things.

First, there’s a lot more money to be saved cutting older employees (more senior positions, much higher pay, almost certainly grandfathered into either a pension [particularly in the case of IBM] or a higher 401k match, more vacation days).

Second, the industry has been trying its damndest to offshore as much as possible. This hits younger employees mostly in the form of “there just aren’t enough viable candidates in the US!” keeping wages down. It’s only through the grace of India being many many time zones away and persistently not-so-great code quality that younger employees aren’t as bad off as they could be.

> To me, it seems plausible that you would find a correlation between people laid off and their age, absent of systematic ageism.

Yes, it’s aaaallll just a coincidence until it happens to you and your friends. Patience, young one.

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

#68

Post by AnimalMuppet » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 7:02 PM UTC

errantspark wrote: post #56

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.

Another externality - if not an intended effect - is that it selects for people who are willing to accept an abusive relationship with their employer.

Why do I call it abusive? "Study this stuff, that isn't actually related to your job, on your own time, for free, for months, and we might give you a job." Even if you do get a job, they still abused you.

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

#69

Post by ChrisLomont » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 7:04 PM UTC

mikelyons wrote: post #13

toomuchtodo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who knew it's outrageous to expect work life balance and reasonable compensation for experience.

The incentive structure of unregulated capitalism is "Extract maximum value with minimum expense. As much as possible externalize the costs." The things to extract value from: employees, environment, government policy, tax code, if I was smarter I'd think of a few others.

"Extract maximum value with minimum expense. As much as possible externalize the costs" is also the incentive structure of workers.

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

#70

Post by pjdemers » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 7:10 PM UTC

Health care. The actuarial cost of gold or platinum health plan for a 25 year old single man is about $600 per month. The cost for a couple in their 50's, with two college age children, is about $3,000 per month.