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steve2470

(37,457 posts)
Sat Mar 24, 2018, 03:05 PM Mar 2018

Probe: How IBM ousts older staff, replaces them with young blood

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/22/ibm_age_discrimination/

IBM for the past five years has been pushing older employees out of the company and replacing them with younger staffers in the US or moving the jobs overseas, it is claimed.

Reg readers may have had a sneaking suspicion this was the case. As we exclusively reported last year, about a third of Big Blue workers, some 130,000 people, are now in India and Bangladesh. And, in early 2017, the IT titan forced its staff to work from centralized offices, rather than from home, which is a handy way to prune older folks from the workforce. Grizzled IBMers are unlikely to be able to up sticks and move across the country to be near an office, compared to younger techies who have yet to settle down.

Today, to remove any lingering doubt from anyone's mind, ProPublica and Mother Jones published a joint report into IBM's hiring and firing practices, which appear to unfairly favor the young and snub the old, after gathering data from more than 1,100 ex-employees. Rather than appraise people on merit, managers instead judge underlings by their year of birth, it is claimed.

Allegations of age discrimination at IBM, to say nothing of other technology companies, have been around for years.
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RKP5637

(67,032 posts)
1. And what you make in salary. Get a little too old or more expensive you're fodder for the
Sat Mar 24, 2018, 03:13 PM
Mar 2018

chopping block.

democratisphere

(17,235 posts)
2. As soon as IBM's Artificial Intelligence Watson is perfected there will be
Sat Mar 24, 2018, 03:15 PM
Mar 2018

fewer younger people working for IBM too. Corporations and the wealthiest American Oligarchs are destroying our nation.

dixiegrrrrl

(60,010 posts)
7. One of my sons ran into that this month
Sat Mar 24, 2018, 07:36 PM
Mar 2018

He is just shy of 50, looks 20 years younger ( good genes form his Momma... )
and reports that during a face to face interview..Seattle....one of the interviewers asked him ..what year did you graduate from college?
Interesting question considering they had his resume on hand.

No, he did not tell me what he answered..it was an email comment to me.

 

oberliner

(58,724 posts)
8. Supposedly it's illegal to ask someone their age in a job interview
Sat Mar 24, 2018, 07:38 PM
Mar 2018

However, it is usually easily deduced from their college graduation year, which is generally listed on a resume.

Demsrule86

(68,352 posts)
4. That happens everywhere. My hubs had to fight for his reduced pension the last eight years
Sat Mar 24, 2018, 04:03 PM
Mar 2018

of his employment. The suddenly stupid syndrome...one day you are great...the next all sorts of bad ratings and bullshit.

USALiberal

(10,877 posts)
5. I have been in IT for 40 years.......
Sat Mar 24, 2018, 04:15 PM
Mar 2018

The biggest issue I see is programmers not keeping their skills up to date.
I started with punch cards and now write iPad apps. Many of my long gone co-workers did not want to learn new technology, many went into management and lost all technical skills.
It has to be something you enjoy doing IMO.

CincyDem

(6,283 posts)
6. Welcome to Corporate America...
Sat Mar 24, 2018, 04:36 PM
Mar 2018


When I started working "retiring" was something that you did.

By the time I got to the end of my career, "retired" was something done to you.

I don't have the data but I would estimate that upwards of 75% of the people I worked with didn't retire...they were retired.

Think about that when your doing your financial planing and think "I'll work 'til Im' XXX". Yeah - you'll work until some guy you've never met in an office you'll never see decides that you're number is up.

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