K
Kathleen Martin
Guest
Over recent times, the tech industry has been rocked with apparently endless high-profile age discrimination lawsuits.
IBM, for example, is in the process of being sued by a number of different parties for what was claimed in a report by ProPublica and Mother Jones as far back as 2018 to be systematic efforts to get rid of older employees and replace them with younger ones. Recent court documents contend that the company’s “highest executives created and attempted to conceal a multi-faceted ‘fire-and-hire’ scheme with the ultimate goal of making IBM’s workforce younger”.
A similar lawsuit against HP was given the green light in April, after five plaintiffs alleged they were part of a process of illegally selecting older workers for dismissal under the supplier’s multi-year Workforce Restructuring Initiative, which began in 2012.
But they are scarcely the only ones. So just what is going on here? Despite the tech industry’s persistent hand-wringing over talent shortages and the continual launch of one diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiative after another to try and resolve the skills crisis, why does the issue of age discrimination continue to rear its ugly head? Is it simply the unfortunate reflection of a sector that really is as notoriously ageist as the popular stereotype suggests?
The answer to the latter question appears to be a resounding “yes” – although more so in less mature subsectors, such as software and the digital startup world, and less so among established companies and more mature subsectors, such as telecoms or hardware.
While most of the available data seems to have been complied pre-pandemic, a report by CWJobs at the end of 2019 revealed that the average UK tech worker starts experiencing age discrimination at the tender age of 29, nearly a decade earlier than the national average. As a result, by the time they hit 38, they are considered by colleagues to be ‘over the hill’, with 35% saying they are classed as too old for their role and 32% afraid of losing their job as a result.
Unsurprisingly then, just over two out of five (41%) acknowledged having observed age discrimination in the workplace compared to an average of 27% across other UK industries. The most common form this bias takes consists of older workers not being offered a job (47%), being overlooked for promotion (31%) and excluded from social activities (28%).
Age discrimination in action
If statistics across the wider economy are anything to go by though, the situation has only got worse since the pandemic struck. The Office for National Statistics indicates that over 50s have been hit harder than any group other than the under-25s, who were disproportionately employed in distressed sectors, such as leisure and hospitality.
In the case of older staff though, not only were they more likely to have had their working hours reduced, but they also experienced higher levels of long-term furloughing, making them now the most likely group to lose their jobs and become unemployed long-term.
Continue reading: https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Age-discrimination-an-overlooked-diversity-issue-in-tech
IBM, for example, is in the process of being sued by a number of different parties for what was claimed in a report by ProPublica and Mother Jones as far back as 2018 to be systematic efforts to get rid of older employees and replace them with younger ones. Recent court documents contend that the company’s “highest executives created and attempted to conceal a multi-faceted ‘fire-and-hire’ scheme with the ultimate goal of making IBM’s workforce younger”.
A similar lawsuit against HP was given the green light in April, after five plaintiffs alleged they were part of a process of illegally selecting older workers for dismissal under the supplier’s multi-year Workforce Restructuring Initiative, which began in 2012.
But they are scarcely the only ones. So just what is going on here? Despite the tech industry’s persistent hand-wringing over talent shortages and the continual launch of one diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiative after another to try and resolve the skills crisis, why does the issue of age discrimination continue to rear its ugly head? Is it simply the unfortunate reflection of a sector that really is as notoriously ageist as the popular stereotype suggests?
The answer to the latter question appears to be a resounding “yes” – although more so in less mature subsectors, such as software and the digital startup world, and less so among established companies and more mature subsectors, such as telecoms or hardware.
While most of the available data seems to have been complied pre-pandemic, a report by CWJobs at the end of 2019 revealed that the average UK tech worker starts experiencing age discrimination at the tender age of 29, nearly a decade earlier than the national average. As a result, by the time they hit 38, they are considered by colleagues to be ‘over the hill’, with 35% saying they are classed as too old for their role and 32% afraid of losing their job as a result.
Unsurprisingly then, just over two out of five (41%) acknowledged having observed age discrimination in the workplace compared to an average of 27% across other UK industries. The most common form this bias takes consists of older workers not being offered a job (47%), being overlooked for promotion (31%) and excluded from social activities (28%).
Age discrimination in action
If statistics across the wider economy are anything to go by though, the situation has only got worse since the pandemic struck. The Office for National Statistics indicates that over 50s have been hit harder than any group other than the under-25s, who were disproportionately employed in distressed sectors, such as leisure and hospitality.
In the case of older staff though, not only were they more likely to have had their working hours reduced, but they also experienced higher levels of long-term furloughing, making them now the most likely group to lose their jobs and become unemployed long-term.
Continue reading: https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Age-discrimination-an-overlooked-diversity-issue-in-tech
