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Intel accused of age discrimination

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Re: Intel accused of age discrimination

#21

Post by humanrebar »

danieltillett wrote: post #10
DeusExMachina wrote: post #3

> older workers tend to be better paid So, if the metric is "remove employees that cost the most but don't seem to justify the cost," it's going to look like age discrimination, even if it wasn't. I don't know whether Intel did this or not, but the point is that you can't assume the intent by the result alone.

Unless the bosses at Intel just hate older people (unlikely as they are almost all older people) they are doing this for economic reasons alone. I say this as someone already over-the-hill age wise that we really need to find a way to allow people as they age to be able to accept a lower wage that matches their productivity. Far fewer old people would be made redundant if they got a wage cut every year instead of a r…

First, productivity (as in widgets per hour) is a bad measure for knowledge worker value. It's famously hard to measure the output of teams of engineers over long periods of time, let alone the recent output of a single engineer.

Second, it is just taken as a given here that knowledge workers become less productive over time. Why are engineers downhill starting in middle age but not doctors, lawyers, professors, and professional coaches?

Third, it's also taken as a given that we can fairly cut the wages of individuals based on... what? Again, we're bad at measuring performance. Are we assuming they're less productive because they're older? How is that OK? It's possible that a 50 year old has become better at relevant things in the last year, surely.

Re: Intel accused of age discrimination

#22

Post by ofrzeta »

danieltillett wrote: post #10
DeusExMachina wrote: post #3

> older workers tend to be better paid So, if the metric is "remove employees that cost the most but don't seem to justify the cost," it's going to look like age discrimination, even if it wasn't. I don't know whether Intel did this or not, but the point is that you can't assume the intent by the result alone.

Unless the bosses at Intel just hate older people (unlikely as they are almost all older people) they are doing this for economic reasons alone. I say this as someone already over-the-hill age wise that we really need to find a way to allow people as they age to be able to accept a lower wage that matches their productivity. Far fewer old people would be made redundant if they got a wage cut every year instead of a r…

Wage cut? You've got to be kidding. I certainly have a lot more experience now than I had in my twenties, that translates to finding bugs faster and better for instance. I don't necessarily expect a raise but there has to be some compensation for inflation at the least.

Re: Intel accused of age discrimination

#23

Post by xstartup »

danieltillett wrote: post #10
DeusExMachina wrote: post #3

> older workers tend to be better paid So, if the metric is "remove employees that cost the most but don't seem to justify the cost," it's going to look like age discrimination, even if it wasn't. I don't know whether Intel did this or not, but the point is that you can't assume the intent by the result alone.

Unless the bosses at Intel just hate older people (unlikely as they are almost all older people) they are doing this for economic reasons alone. I say this as someone already over-the-hill age wise that we really need to find a way to allow people as they age to be able to accept a lower wage that matches their productivity. Far fewer old people would be made redundant if they got a wage cut every year instead of a r…

I think many employers are able to justify it because

When an employee is at the best position (age wise), they hop jobs a lot and negotiate higher pay even at the detriment of the company. Yes, it does cost a lot when an employee hops too much. Employers have no option here.

This system will always have winners, you can definitely improve the situation but you'll have to tax the winners, it has never worked well in past.

Re: Intel accused of age discrimination

#24

Post by roenxi »

humanrebar wrote: post #21
danieltillett wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless the bosses at Intel just hate older people (unlikely as they are almost all older people) they are doing this for economic reasons alone. I say this as someone already over-the-hill age wise that we really need to find a way to allow people as they age to be able to accept a lower wage that matches their productivity. Far fewer old people would be made redundant if they got a wage cut every year instead of a r…

First, productivity (as in widgets per hour) is a bad measure for knowledge worker value. It's famously hard to measure the output of teams of engineers over long periods of time, let alone the recent output of a single engineer. Second, it is just taken as a given here that knowledge workers become less productive over time. Why are engineers downhill starting in middle age but not doctors, lawyers, professors, and…

> Second, it is just taken as a given here that knowledge workers become less productive over time. Why are engineers downhill starting in middle age but not doctors, lawyers, professors, and professional coaches?

Software engineers in particular. Computers really started to stabilise in the 2003 when single core clock speeds hit a wall. 'Rapid' change since then looks a bit glacial compared to what rapid meant in the 90s. I don't have anything to back it up, but I'm pretty suspicious that a lot of specific techniques that were important in the 90s are no longer important.

I know lawyers were in existence in ~500BC and the law famously changes slowly. Doctors, coaches, etc are in a similar boat where the situation now is basically the same as when they were 10 years old. No such similarities in software, the languages, bottlenecks, opportunities and best-practice mindset (in many areas) has changed. It makes sense why software engineers under the age of 30 would have an edge. If hardware continues to plateau (moderate if, given graphics cards) then the current generation will not have the same problem when they are 50.

ASIDE: I always wonder if it is really a coincidence that Apple started making inroads at the exact second that being able to quickly incorporate new parts stopped being an exponential advantage.

Re: Intel accused of age discrimination

#25

Post by xstartup »

humanrebar wrote: post #21
danieltillett wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless the bosses at Intel just hate older people (unlikely as they are almost all older people) they are doing this for economic reasons alone. I say this as someone already over-the-hill age wise that we really need to find a way to allow people as they age to be able to accept a lower wage that matches their productivity. Far fewer old people would be made redundant if they got a wage cut every year instead of a r…

First, productivity (as in widgets per hour) is a bad measure for knowledge worker value. It's famously hard to measure the output of teams of engineers over long periods of time, let alone the recent output of a single engineer. Second, it is just taken as a given here that knowledge workers become less productive over time. Why are engineers downhill starting in middle age but not doctors, lawyers, professors, and…

1. Difficulty in assigning a single number to performance does not mean that you can't compare against others.

2. There is license requirement, taxi medallion like setup with lawyers, doctors which keeps overall supply low.

3. It's just not just your salary which company pays. There is a cost to company per employee if the ratio of your salary: cost to company declines, you are a problem for the company and company wants to invest in an employee with a better ratio.

Also, you are making an assumption that we can look at an employee's productivity in isolation.

No, there is a guy at our company. He is good at everything he does but no one wants to talk to him at a company due to his behavior issue. And whenever anyone finds a work which needs talking to him, they drag their feet, make excuses just to avoid him.

Maybe older guys don't fit in the band of recent graduates? Maybe they feel that new guys are reinventing the wheel and dismiss the idea outright?

Just imagine, if someone experienced (or old) (who has years of experience in payment processing) told Stripe founder that their idea is BS because they are tired of payment processing and have seen nothing new.

Re: Intel accused of age discrimination

#26

Post by rbanffy »

sgift wrote: post #16
rdl wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the job is something with such a steep learning curve and plateau (maybe due to periodic technical revolutions?) that someone with 20 years experience is only insignificantly better than someone with 5 years experience, economics would support paying them the same. If we want to artificially subsidize some more expensive older workers, they should be subsidized directly by society, not by forcing employers to do s…

> If the job is something with such a steep learning curve and plateau (maybe due to periodic technical revolutions?) that someone with 20 years experience is only insignificantly better than someone with 5 years experience, economics would support paying them the same. Good news then that this isn't how tech jobs work, where about 99% of all "technical revolutions" are just renaming old things which had fallen out o…

> about 99% of all "technical revolutions" are just renaming old things which had fallen out of fashion and use them again

Remember how thrilled web developers were when they discovered MVC the last couple times?

Re: Intel accused of age discrimination

#27

Post by rbanffy »

blackbrokkoli wrote: post #2

It's weird that the article pulls out statistics that underline Intels wrongdoing (ρ(age, awareness of rights/pay/...) but not the statistics that might be the reason: Older people are less innovative, learn slower and so on. Ergo, if you're for example firing the bottom percentile of "adapted the new data entry tool", there is a good chance that the avg will be higher than the avg of all people working there

http://dilbert.com/strip/1995-06-24

We aren't slower. We only move in the right directions.

Re: Intel accused of age discrimination

#28

Post by xstartup »

chrisbennet wrote: post #11
blackbrokkoli wrote: post #2

It's weird that the article pulls out statistics that underline Intels wrongdoing (ρ(age, awareness of rights/pay/...) but not the statistics that might be the reason: Older people are less innovative, learn slower and so on. Ergo, if you're for example firing the bottom percentile of "adapted the new data entry tool", there is a good chance that the avg will be higher than the avg of all people working there

Given that "Older people are less innovative, learn slower and so on." what would you guess the average age of founders with a successful startup exit is? (A) 22 (B) 26 (C) 31

That might be the reason for most of the startup failing eh? Statistics can be taken anywhere.

Re: Intel accused of age discrimination

#29

Post by ihsw2 »

xstartup wrote: post #23
danieltillett wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless the bosses at Intel just hate older people (unlikely as they are almost all older people) they are doing this for economic reasons alone. I say this as someone already over-the-hill age wise that we really need to find a way to allow people as they age to be able to accept a lower wage that matches their productivity. Far fewer old people would be made redundant if they got a wage cut every year instead of a r…

I think many employers are able to justify it because When an employee is at the best position (age wise), they hop jobs a lot and negotiate higher pay even at the detriment of the company. Yes, it does cost a lot when an employee hops too much. Employers have no option here. This system will always have winners, you can definitely improve the situation but you'll have to tax the winners, it has never worked well in…

> Employers have no option here.

Employees hop because of wage stagnation -- there is an option here, prevent wage stagnation.

Re: Intel accused of age discrimination

#30

Post by Uberphallus »

mark_edward wrote: post #17
blackbrokkoli wrote: post #2

It's weird that the article pulls out statistics that underline Intels wrongdoing (ρ(age, awareness of rights/pay/...) but not the statistics that might be the reason: Older people are less innovative, learn slower and so on. Ergo, if you're for example firing the bottom percentile of "adapted the new data entry tool", there is a good chance that the avg will be higher than the avg of all people working there

>Older people are less innovative, learn slower and so on. Why should I or anyone else believe this about older and more experienced programmers? I can't think of many fields where more experienced practitioners are generally worse...

'Oh, you don't know the latest JS/PHP/Python web framework? Prfff, what a dinosaur.'
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