"As with prior layoffs, or "resource actions" to use IBM's euphemism, we're told those affected are substantially in the 50-55 age bracket with 20-24 years of seniority.
"It seems exclusively people in L7 and L8 and L9 bands, at the top of the band in payment structure," the insider said.""
I've always thought the term "resource" was dehumanizing, but at least on its own it could be interpreted positively, but "resource actions" is just upsetting
Band 10 and above include good soft-skills, people who can persuade the industry and organization, give TED talks, etc.
> when a layoff predominately targets a specific division or pay level it means the strategy leading up to that point had been wrong.
This is fair but isn’t also this what we want? Like if you run a company, if you realize that mistakes were made, isn’t it reasonable to expect a correction? And by “what we want” I mean the admitting a mistake and correcting it.
What will happen is that they rehire, and rehire young.
And it’s clearly a stupid argument because there are other factors and not just age.
But, as you said, C-suite comps won't go down. Neither do VP comps. But the people rehired, oddly, are all younger. And that is ageist.
Not if they axe the position. Neither if it's in a single instance. But if, at scale, older people are fired, younger people are rehired, and comp doesn't change significantly - yeah, sorry, that's ageist.
There's a reason many companies instead offer folks a juicy "if you leave, have a chunk of money" package - they do want younger people for one reason or another (and I don't think it's fundamentally wrong to want a change) and this a way to do this in a way that does not discriminate.
IBM's leaning hard into being an asshole instead. There's a reason they've had reams of discrimination lawsuits. Significantly more than comparable companies. Let's not make excuses for them, they have lawyers for that.
Is it though? Or is it just that younger people are just cheaper to hire? It’s the same reasoning in reverse. Older people with more experience demand a higher pay. And if you’re motivated—again, wrongly—just by money you probably will end up hiring younger. Because it’s cheaper.
And again, I think it’s dumb. Just not ageist. It’s probably greed which is not uncommon in the business world.
That's the issue.
It's a nonsensical hypothetical.
Now, what I’m pushing against is this idea that it is “ageist”. I’m no native speaker but ageist is defined as
> a bias against individuals and groups based on their age
Now if I decide to fire everyone who’s making more than 500k at a company and it just so happens that those people are all above a certain age I don’t think that’s ageist. It’s certainly stupid and I think I made it clear. It’s a money driven decision, which is also stupid.
I just think it’s important of accuse people of the right thing if you want to accuse them of something. That’s all I’m saying.
But again, the fuck do I know. I don’t work in corporate, don’t play the stupid ladder game, will never get a promotion. I’m just here sharing a random thought on the bizarre business world you people live in.
They don't have a habit of hiring young rockstars with insane salaries (because these people wouldn't fit the culture).
When all of your outcomes result in same treatment of the same group of individuals, there just might be a little fire to that smoke.
Disparate outcomes most definitely imply disparate treatment, at least enough to merit further investigation
What OTHER advantages, disadvantages, preparation levels, etc. are working for and/or against that group?
Can those factors account for the differential?
What is the groups' actual relative performance in the situation (i.e., do they tend to perform at|above|below the level to which they have risen, e.g., legacy college admissions with "Gentleman's Cs" are performing below)?
And so forth.
The point is that statistical disparities are not conclusive, but are most often indicative of some kind of structural favoritism, like smoke to fire. Not always, and you can always cherry-pick some counter-example, but the default assumption is that it merits investigation.
Between the two of us, I am looking at a well-researched and widely understood example of why a disparate outcome doesn't actually imply what we would intuitively think, while you are talking about metaphors of smoke and "taking closer looks" as if those justify angrily jumping to conclusions.
If you have some sort of correlation coefficient to justify jumping to conclusions even mildly, I'd appreciate that contribution. But "something isn't equal" isn't even necessarily reason to look into something further, let alone a reason to presume the cause. Nothing is ever equal. Equality is a fictional concept, and doing deep dives into every example of it would exhaust our collective resources.
In any case, none of this conversation is at the level of a dissertation, neither enough time or space.
The start was a seven-word comment with a tone I read that was entirely dismissive of even the concept that IBM could be practicing ageism.
It cannot be dismissed so easily (and I have family working there trying to evade exactly those ageist axes to get to retirement with full benefits).
The point of the smoke/fire is that a single good counter-example of disparate results likely not implying discrimination does not disprove all examples. The fact remains, such statistics remain a good starting point.
You have many words, but beyond the first general wave of the hands that statistics do not imply discrimination and one non-correlating example, I've missed where you provided any info or evidence to show IBM is not practicing ageism, in particular to effectively cut pensions.
Since IBM are clearly managing the workforce for profit, the multiplier of cutting older people is far larger; you save not only a few years of higher salaries, but also up to decades of zeroed or reduced pensions. Pretty strong financial incentive.