If you fire say 10% of those 20 to 45, and 20% of those 46 and up, you have some explaining to do. Assuming you fire people only on merit, which should be IBM's claim, then the percentage should be about the same.
I suppose IBM could make a case that older people are simply less productive, which may not go over well with a jury. They could also claim HR "inadvertently paid too much" for years spent at the company, and that they are now correcting it. That's also a hard sell. Going to be an interesting trial...
As an "older person" I find that experience has made me cynical such that I'm less likely to be enthusiastic about bullsh&t fads, and managers don't like people second-guessing their poor decisions (even if right). Ego often trumps merit of a argument. Maybe we oldbies need to take Fake Smile classes. "Distributed node.js microservice blockchains for a 7-user CRUD app? Oh wonderful, I'm so happy, I can fart rainbows!" I wish my experience-induced skills in spotting BS were more valued. (Yes, it's good to keep up on trends, but there's so many that one has to pick with care.)
Assuming you fire people only on merit, which should be IBM's claim, then the percentage should be about the same.
This is not accurate. Older people being more likely to be fired in a particular layoff could be a correlation, not a causation. You can't statistically prove discrimination in this way.
Every "correlation" reason I've seen anyone come up with still looks pretty much like discrimination done in a round-about way, or at least could be seen as such in front of a jury. Still, I could be surprised.
The point of "correlation is not causation" is that doesn't need to be a reason for every correlation. Things can be correlated without there being a clear reason. It's like how a reduction in piracy is correlated with global warming.
An org doesn't have to "intend" to discriminate to actually discriminate. Plus, the jury may not care about "causation" and instead focus on whether some filter of some kind somewhere screened out older people. It depends on the jury instructions and the personalities of the jurors.
I suppose IBM could make a case that older people are simply less productive, which may not go over well with a jury. They could also claim HR "inadvertently paid too much" for years spent at the company, and that they are now correcting it. That's also a hard sell. Going to be an interesting trial...
As an "older person" I find that experience has made me cynical such that I'm less likely to be enthusiastic about bullsh&t fads, and managers don't like people second-guessing their poor decisions (even if right). Ego often trumps merit of a argument. Maybe we oldbies need to take Fake Smile classes. "Distributed node.js microservice blockchains for a 7-user CRUD app? Oh wonderful, I'm so happy, I can fart rainbows!" I wish my experience-induced skills in spotting BS were more valued. (Yes, it's good to keep up on trends, but there's so many that one has to pick with care.)