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Feds: IBM did discriminate against older workers in making layoffs

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

#181

Post by kls »

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.

While I don't disagree with you, there are other nuanced facets to this as well. I am 45 soon to be 46, and I have watched this industry chew up and spit out many of my friends and colleagues along the way. Burnout is a real thing. I have a friend who one day said F'it and bought a worm farm, he is literally a worm farmer now. Others took the elevator to management, one became a DJ, one opened a party store etc. etc. We loose a lot of the old timers to attrition, not many people can do the software grind for 20-30 years straight.

The second nuance is that I and the rest of Gen-X sit one the cusp of the desktop revolution and its transition to the internet revolution. Most of the desktop programmers 30+ year at that time, did not make the transition, they stuck with desktop and rode it into the twilight of their career and that is a big reason you just don't seem to see too many people over their mid 40's in the industry.

None of that negates the fact that ageism does exist in this industry, but there are other contributing factors as to why we don't see many programmers past the 40's cut off.

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

#182

Post by kls »

johnward wrote: post #84
commandlinefan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I left IBM by choice to become an IBM sub-contractor. I was paid better and had better benefits. I don't really see how IBM is saving money here.

If you are still subbing for them, raise you rate. IBM was one of my best paying contracts, but I hated the work. I kept raising my rate to make them go away, Finally I had to say you guys are eating up all my consultancy time, I can't take contracts from you, because I am becoming too dependent financially on a single source of revenue. It was a hard financial pill to swallow, given that I was making 4x my rate of any other contracts. We parted ways amicably but I had to make the break, as I was just becoming a satellite around IBM.

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

#183

Post by tolbish »

EliRivers wrote: post #116
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…

We just hired, for what we thought was something of a bargain price, a chap who spent the last thirty years working in a variety of software and hardware development positions. The aerospace industry is shedding people like there's no tomorrow (because for some of the industry, there isn't a tomorrow) so we got a good deal. I'm not ashamed to admit it; I had the budget for a mid-experience software engineer but got a…

What are you going to do with all the extra cash he's making you?

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

#184

Post by znpy »

biztos wrote: post #124
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…

> just collecting a paycheck... If anybody thinks there aren't a lot of young people at large tech companies just collecting a paycheck, I have some bad news for them...

I've seen this, and can confirm that.

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

#185

Post by pmiller2 »

reaperducer wrote: post #155
Grimm1 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I have 15 years experience in computing. I assure you I am not a greenhorn and you are insulting.

"I'm 25, I've been programming for 15 years now" No one is going to look at your resume and be impressed by what you did when you were ten years old.

Hey, I independently rediscovered the bubble sort algorithm at 10 years old. That should count for something, right? :P

In all seriousness, I wrote my first programs at 7, and, while I don't expect you or anyone else to be impressed about that in the sense of it being a resume accomplishment, having that early intro to programming certainly did help me when I went to college and learned "big boy" programming. Ceteris paribus, I'd probably prefer to hire the candidate who started programming at 10 versus the one who never twiddled a bit until college.

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

#186

Post by stuff4ben »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #177
freetanga wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So other peoples biases have created an opportunity for your company. If the market undervalues someone for spurious reasons then you can exploit that. Move on to middle aged female minority programmers next.

>middle aged female minority programmers So you're purposely limiting your market to just a handful of people? I know of 1 maybe 2 middle-aged females who program. None are minority. I know of 0 minority non-greencard holders (in other words Black or Latino). Asian is different, I know several middle-aged female Asian developers.

And I was a manager for a while and couldn't get any resumes of minorities period. They just don't exist or are already happy where they were. It's truly a shame.

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

#187

Post by jaeming »

flowerlad wrote: post #21
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…

What would happen if you lied about your age (eliminate the first 10 years from your resume), both at the time of applying for the job and after joining the company? How much trouble can you get in for that? It doesn't seem unethical at all.

I basically did this. I mean I wouldn't say it's a "lie" to simply omit things from you're resume that you don't feel are relevant or may hurt your chances. I shortened my resume to a single page and left high school and my attempt at college off of it completely. No one ever brought this up at the interview.

It's also not actually legal where I live for the employer to inquire about an applicant's age. After I was hired, the manager did ask me at lunch how old I was, I just replied, "I can't remember". Yeah, he probably didn't mean anything by it and he could probably look it up with HR. But I just honestly didn't feel like it should be relevant to my role at work.

I don't feel like this was unethical, perhaps slightly paranoid at most. Speaking of which, I didn't even tell anyone I had kids until I was out of my 90 day probation period.

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

#188

Post by [deleted] »

gnu8 wrote: post #171
LanceH wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no age requirement on being a recent college grad. They tend to be clustered tightly in a certain age range, but a 45 year old graduating would still have access to that same recruiting pipeline. Non diverse results doesn't imply illegal discrimination.

> a 45 year old graduating would still have access to that same recruiting pipeline. Do we really believe this?

[deleted]

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

#190

Post by forgotmypw17 »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #170
yardie wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every job that you have gotten has needed ID for background checks. I've never been asked for ID, age, or gender during the interview process. Nor would I give that information freely. I recently filled an online application that asked for SSN and I dropped it right there. You only need my SSN for employer taxes, no way is that part of any job interview.

SSN also has an approximate timestamp encoded into it. The prefix can be linked to the time period it was given out, which is typically at or near birth registration.

This is public knowledge, and the prefixes are even used for identity verification at banks.

If you got your SSN at an age other than ~0, you may get flagged as a mis-match when e.g. applying for a new bank account, and it will require a human override to get past.

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