Stefan Mileschin

Fired older workers in massive restructuring

US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is investigating claims that Chipzilla discriminated against its older staff members.

The Wall Street Journal said that Intel's large-scale layoffs appear to have been targeted at older employees. In a May 2016 round that cut 2,300 workers, for instance, the median age of those let go was 49 - seven years older than those who remained. If this figure is correct, Intel decided that having the most experienced and qualified staff was less important than saving cash.

The EEOC hasn't decided whether or not it will file a class action lawsuit against Intel, but the affected people will be free to pursue civil lawsuits if the regulator doesn't find enough evidence to pursue its case. Intel might be lucky in that it is currently the US watchdogs which are doing the investigation as it has a better chance of not being fined back to the Bronze Age if it loses. It could be that this investigation sparks a wave of international investigations into Intel's antics. If the fine bill goes up, then any money that Intel might have saved by replacing its older staff with young, pimply interns might be lost.

An Intel spokesperson categorically denied that age played a role. The layoffs were meant to "fuel Intel's evolution" away from its PC focus and toward powering a variety of connected devices, it said. The representative maintained that factors like age were "not part of the process".

So the firing of older workers was just a coincidence.

Age discrimination is becoming a mounting concern at tech companies as a whole, including IBM - which is also facing an EEOC investigation. Older employees are easy targets for companies looking to cut costs and fill their ranks with flexible workers who aren't yet worrying about families or retirement.

https://fudzilla.com/news/46406-chip...ing-due-to-age