
Intel under investigation over age discrimination in massive job cuts - masonic
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/05/29/intel-under-investigation-over-age-discrimination-in-massive-job-cuts-reports-say/
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RoyTyrell
If true, that's both sad and stupid. I've learned so much from my more senior
engineers 10-20-30yrs older than me; everything from the "craft" of writing
software, to better ways of debugging, to more practical software engineering
methods, hell to how to deal with the business side. I can't imagine anyone
with any real knowledge would can them.

The only valid reason to can older engineers is to reduce labor costs by both
getting higher paid employees off the books and keep around the 23yr olds who
will work 60hrs a week.

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giancarlostoro
Keeping the juniors might not always be the best. You might find out just how
much hand holding they got from seniors and reap the "benefits" then.

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Alex3917
> Keeping the juniors might not always be the best.

The real issue is that the government isn't putting CEOs in prison for
creating software with security issues, so companies are able to reduce their
expenses by shifting the costs of bad software onto the general public.

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jpadkins
do you really want to live in a world where founders can be put in jail for
writing insecure code?

~~~
Alex3917
Yes. People can go to prison for malpractice in other areas, like medicine or
civil engineering, why should software development be any different?

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SamReidHughes
Because mind your own business, that's why.

Or do you _want_ to force the software industry overseas?

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sir_kin
I'd rather people be held accountable for what they create, especially when it
involves me, my stuff, or my data.

I'd rather firms like Equifax be regulated into the ground than get a free
pass due to scaremongering. (coincidentally, Equifax is in an industry that
will NEVER be forced overseas.)

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SamReidHughes
All you want is a scapegoat for your bloodlust.

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londons_explore
40 percent of those laid off were over 40.

Doesn't really sound bad considering over 50 percent of one's working life
happens over the age of 40

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p49k
You can’t really evaluate if it was bad or not unless you know what percentage
of the total workforce was over 40 before the layoffs. The lower that number
is (below 40%), the more disproportionate the action was.

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pc86
Yeah the math is a LOT more complicated than that. You just say say "only 25%
of employees are 41+ therefore this was discriminatory" unless the goal of the
layoffs is a normal distribution of ages company-wide, which I think is
unlikely.

What departments were affects most? Was seniority a factor? Was pay a factor?
Were certain projects, departments, or teams exempt from layoffs? Without
having very detailed data about who was let go and what the justification was
nobody can say whether it was discriminatory.

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wooter
discrimination vs. discrepancy. I find it odd that many people jump to the
first while simultaneously holding the belief that corporations only care
about profit.

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pc86
What do you meant as far as discrimination v. discrepancy? Just because
numbers don't line up doesn't automatically mean there is nefarious intent.
Corporations can care only about profit and still operate within the bounds of
the law.

~~~
wooter
thats what I'm saying. many people jump to 'discrimination' when its merely a
discrepancy. discrepancies exist everywhere for entirely benign reasons.
furthermore, believing its discrimination for its own sake (like age
discrimination) would contradict the belief that companies optimize for profit
(which I don't think is a bad thing) since there no absolute causality there.

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Shivetya
not sure how it is handled elsewhere but friends having gone through a
reduction in force (the polite term) both gave me similar documents which
listed affected positions and age of employee. no further details were given
but in small enough shops its easy to know who is who. the interesting part is
that they detailed all positions and not just those let go.

I have to assume that age discrimination is the easier one to hit on as the
others are to blatantly obvious if they occur outside of government positions

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downrightmike
The company makes those sheets up to show that they are not discriminating on
age.
[https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/discrimination/agedisc](https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/discrimination/agedisc)

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makecheck
I don’t know their motivation but _if_ their goal was “fewest layoffs with
most money saved short-term”, it would be hard _not_ to bias layoffs toward
more senior people. Senior, highest-paid employees don’t _have_ to be the
oldest but _probably_ are.

Of course, that isn’t necessarily a good idea for other reasons (losing all
that ingrained knowledge and experience, etc.). It would mainly make sense as
a desperate short-term cost savings.

~~~
Bartweiss
This is certainly possible, but I'd be a bit surprised if Intel was cutting
costs that naively - I don't think they're as strapped for cash as the
businesses that make this move.

When IBM did this, they were intentionally targeting age qua age - their
internal documents set age/experience targets rather than salary ones, and
claimed that a younger "tech-native" workforce would produce better results.
Admittedly, they seem to have had some monetary motives too, but even those
were shady: by firing older workers who couldn't get new jobs, they turned
them into a pool of contract workers without pensions or benefits.

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40acres
I don't think anything will come of this, Intel I think has a pretty good
cover. Internally it's no secret that one of the big criteria were the results
of your most recent performance evaluation. If you received a certain stock
grant that highlighted you for reduction -- however the kicker is only people
of a certain pay grade could receive that certain stock level. Most people who
are in that grade are at least 30 years old.

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twiceaday
Perhaps Intel made too many promotions based on time served and not merit and
the cuts was a time to correct.

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merinowool
Can someone explain to me why it is acceptable to force unwanted employees on
company's payroll?

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simion314
Is about discrimination, say if you have 2 employees A and B, you have to fire
one of them, if you use criteria like who is more sexy,or race, or political
views,religion or family relation then you are not fair and workers had to pay
with their life in the past to have fair working conditions and some other
groups again had to made sacrifices to have equal rights.

In this case maybe Intel is not guilty and the age issue is a correlation with
the salary.

~~~
merinowool
Ok, but how is that a problem? If employer doesn't want you, you look for
another job.

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simion314
Because only work related criteria should be considered, the employer should
not ask for sex and decide who to keep based on sexual performance, or ask the
employees to vote for X to keep their job.

The laws are in place because of bad behavior and were not created as a
solution for a non existing problem.

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nikanj
I'm saddened to see Intel has taken a good gulp of the "Young people are
smarter"-Kool Aid

~~~
bufferoverflow
It's actually established science that your fluid intelligence drops after
hitting 30's, and the skills for certain tasks even earlier. It's sad, but
it's dumb to deny biological reality.

[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SBJ2KTl2f3c/VjPN9JeWLiI/AAAAAAAAVd...](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SBJ2KTl2f3c/VjPN9JeWLiI/AAAAAAAAVdo/fKBVoZw287o/s1600/Age-
decline-in-intelligence.jpg)

[https://study.com/cimages/multimages/16/adultintelligence.jp...](https://study.com/cimages/multimages/16/adultintelligence.jpg)

[https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-
qimg-496a52a13eaee1e99f39e3...](https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-
qimg-496a52a13eaee1e99f39e3c9e4d5ec73-c)

~~~
0xfeba
It's somewhat taboo to mention that though. Reminds me of a Charles Murray's
_The Bell Curve_ , which merely pointed out that various races have differing
average intelligence. Despite clarifying that the standard deviation was much
wider than any of the differences (so you cannot judge an individual based on
the results), the author was shamed, blacklisted, and threatened for his work.

Some people just like to live in a fairy tale where how everyone _should be_
treated is the same as how everyone actually _is_.

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s2g
Has anyone ever referenced that work and not been a complete racist piece of
crap?

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SamReidHughes
Charles Murray?

