IBM Is Being Sued for Age Discrimination

M76 said:

One thing has always bugged me. If they hire older people instead of younger ones isn't that age discrimination as well?

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That isn't age discrimination. That's more likely discrimination based on experience. And I hate to tell you, that's perfectly valid. Few interviewers consider this however.

I've seen some really bad and poor older programmers. And I've seen some ASTONISHINGLY GOOD ones who adapt to new tech or are masters at old tech which might be the basis of your products.

IBM used to be a great American company that just happened to conduct business internationally. They hired the best technical talent available and were a leader in the industry. At some point, the MBA's thought it would be a great idea to reduce their labor costs by outsourcing as much as possible to countries like India/China. The remaining jobs that couldn't be outsourced were then refilled with imported foreign labor through the H1B program. Most of their H1B's were done via third party contracting so their official employee count wouldn't show as high of an H1B count.

This latest story of elimination of older employees is just another example of trying to reduce expenses at the cost of skills/experience. I'm sure that a lot of the replacements of older American workers will be from the "best & brightest" H1B labor pool. IBM is now a true multinational corporation. I think they have more Indian workers than American workers so maybe the I stands for India now. The company is just a shell of what it used to be.

mlcarson said:

IBM used to be a great American company that just happened to conduct business internationally. They hired the best technical talent available and were a leader in the industry. At some point, the MBA's thought it would be a great idea to reduce their labor costs by outsourcing as much as possible to countries like India/China. The remaining jobs that couldn't be outsourced were then refilled with imported foreign labor through the H1B program. Most of their H1B's were done via third party contracting so their official employee count wouldn't show as high of an H1B count.

This latest story of elimination of older employees is just another example of trying to reduce expenses at the cost of skills/experience. I'm sure that a lot of the replacements of older American workers will be from the "best & brightest" H1B labor pool. IBM is now a true multinational corporation. I think they have more Indian workers than American workers so maybe the I stands for India now. The company is just a shell of what it used to be.

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Make sure to thank Trump, they will start penalizing companies who outsource and move their production facilities overseas, no longer will they get tax breaks,and now have to pay import costs.

While I was at IBM for 3 years, their customers were leaving left and right, because companies who hire IBM don't want the damn indians, they want highly skilled americans.

The bullshit stops right now, Its about damn time we start fixing america. http://fortune.com/2017/10/10/donald-trump-outsource-carrot-stick/

M76 said:

One thing has always bugged me. If they hire older people instead of younger ones isn't that age discrimination as well?

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In a perfect work wxperience and skills match are the biggest determining factors and age does not come into the picture. That is one reason you should never put your birth date, age or list more than 5-7 years of experience on your resume (showing 30 years of experience is a dead giveaway that you are an old fart).

But I think the main problem is when these huge companies have an existing workforce, they are more interested in clearing older workers out, preferably before having to give them retirement benefits and replacing them with kids fresh out of school or the younger employees from other companies they have acquired. Younger employees are a lot cheaper to ensure with group benefits than older ones. They are a lot more resilient to stress than aging employees.

cyberguyz said:

In a perfect work wxperience and skills match are the biggest determining factors and age does not come into the picture. That is one reason you should never put your birth date, age or list more than 5-7 years of experience on your resume (showing 30 years of experience is a dead giveaway that you are an old fart).

But I think the main problem is when these huge companies have an existing workforce, they are more interested in clearing older workers out, preferably before having to give them retirement benefits and replacing them with kids fresh out of school or the younger employees from other companies they have acquired. Younger employees are a lot cheaper to ensure with group benefits than older ones. They are a lot more resilient to stress than aging employees.

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That just really sucks. You work your ass off for 30 yrs in a stressful IT environment, then the company just gets rid of you for benefits. I absolutely HATE corporate america!!! Should have worked for the government.

Motley said:

That just really sucks. You work your ass off for 30 yrs in a stressful IT environment, then the company just gets rid of you for benefits.

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Could just step back in time a little and start lynching those who are responsible. The govt/corps should fear the people, not the other way around.

Motley said:

Make sure to thank Trump, they will start penalizing companies who outsource and move their production facilities overseas, no longer will they get tax breaks,and now have to pay import costs.

While I was at IBM for 3 years, their customers were leaving left and right, because companies who hire IBM don't want the damn indians, they want highly skilled americans.

The bullshit stops right now, Its about damn time we start fixing america. http://fortune.com/2017/10/10/donald-trump-outsource-carrot-stick/

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Still waiting.

https://inhomelandsecurity.com/outsourcing-trump-administration/

I hardly ever hear anything positive about IBM. How do they keep landing contracts?

Rizen said:

I hardly ever hear anything positive about IBM. How do they keep landing contracts?

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I suspect by bidding low, and for the most part people will go for the lowest number, rather than the lowest number that can be delivered without having to treat your employees like crap. It's absolutely horrific in the UK with the Government, who accept rock bottom bids from companies, who then can't do the job because there's no profit in it. G4S are terrible for it, often bailing on jobs and leaving it to the tax payer to pick up - before getting awarded another contract from the government. It's the same old problem that nobody seems to look further down the line than their next bonus, when actually life would be an awful lot better for pretty much everyone if we planned ahead a bit!

As for sacking people because they get "old" (like, is 50 old? I hope not...) is just horrendous because these people will have at least a decade, probably more in the marches trying to get another job before pensions kick in. In theory, it's a good thing not to have people cling on to jobs forever; there are only so many jobs in existence and if they're all occupied by an aging population you end up with young people struggling to get a foot on the ladder; but it's absolutely not acceptable to oust people from work because of their age if there's no provision of support.

If you're consider past it and unemployable by 50, that's the retirement age, and we need to provide. Except we won't, obviously.