Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Feds: IBM did discriminate against older workers in making layoffs

wraltechwire.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 200 posts

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

#81

Post by Nasrudith »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #68
errantspark wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn't that "abuse" fundamentally how the whole job selection labor market works? You must attempt to ferret out vocational demands to fuffill to get paid and junp through all "selling" hoops. I can see only a few otber broad alternatives.

1. Gatekeeping "Do you have the credential for X from the system? If so first come first served for defined pay bracket.". While lower friction once done it is an informational organizing nightmare even before dealing with perverse incentives in who can work as what. Choice of credentials vs demand would still be an issue. 2. Defacto Corveé system of "You work at X and live at Y or else." Obvious issues with lack of freedom and inefficient use of human potential. 3. Agent Dynastic: Less formalized gatekeeping where the sales must be handled by an intermediary to seperate non-job relevant skills. If you can sell your own labor then it is just labor market capitalism essentially as the non-relevant skills are tautologically now job related.

I get how it sucks but I am not sure how to improve upon it without leading to the problems of the other approaches.

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

#82

Post by Avicebron »

asdasfasdfasdf wrote: post #61
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 abo…

I would argue that the entire corporate structure is designed like this. I've seen it in every industry I have worked in, it's a quarter by quarter slog to see some decrease in cost and increase in profit.

It's part of reason that I feel like everyone is looking for that fabled "exit" and building a sustainable business just doesn't really exist..

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

#83

Post by ChuckMcM »

Could add "... to the surprise of absolutely no one." to that headline :-).

Blekko was acquired by IBM, and as a result I worked there for 18 months as we transitioned from company to being part of IBM. That they were trying to aggressively move the "old guard" out was not much of a secret.

In their particular case I actually felt some sympathy for them because, as a 100+ year old company, a lot of long time veterans had a comfort zone around what used to work but no longer worked. I had a long, largely one-sided, conversation with a senior leader in their "Cloud" organization to try to explain how companies like Google and Facebook use and deploy data centers as essentially very large computers. But this person was so comfortable and confident in the 'enterprise data center' concepts that died with Digital Equipment and Sun Microsystems they just couldn't wrap their heads around it.

I get that, I struggle with it as well, when the world changes as fast as it does, your have to actively re-evaluate what is "canon" and what isn't. If you cannot do that, then it doesn't help you to stay in a leadership position because you will drive right into the iceberg confident in all your decisions.

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

#84

Post by johnward »

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.

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.

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

#86

Post by exegete »

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.

The one problem might be education on your resume. People can infer age from that generally. If you leave dates off it might also be seen that you are hiding the dates because of your age.

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

#87

Post by Avicebron »

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.

I think it depends on the nature of the work, in biotech, contractors are generally seen as extendible, cheap, and easy to find. "consultants" are usually more expensive and they come on with more experience and more options, so they are more expensive. I think for both roles the flexibility works in different ways.

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

#88

Post by BrainlingPdx »

pjdemers wrote: post #70

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.

It's almost like a for profit health care system creates a bunch of really bad downstream effects that are a net negative to the total long term economy.

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

#89

Post by vkou »

exegete wrote: post #86
flowerlad wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The one problem might be education on your resume. People can infer age from that generally. If you leave dates off it might also be seen that you are hiding the dates because of your age.

Have the work section chronological (And omit everything >10 years old), and the education section styled a bit differently, as a bunch of bullet points without dates.

It might be a bit weird, but I doubt it'll fail the HR filters. You can even do something like call it 'Education and Skills', in which case dates don't even make any sense to include. (Nobody ever says which year they've learned C#.)

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

#90

Post by ska »

mikelyons wrote: post #15
ska wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can generate a lot of revenue with workers with less experience, even factoring in mistakes, lower productivity and output, etc. It's not at all clear that there a net gain here, so the situation is at best complex.

In what way is the net gain not clear here? It seems clear to me that "even factoring in" means that there is a net gain for the employer, at a net loss to employees.

  > It seems clear to me that "even factoring in" means that there is a net gain for the employer, at a net loss to employees.
It may seem clear to you, but it is neither well measured nor well understood.
Post reply on HN