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> On one hand, while harsh, laying off older workers (even the ones who have kept up to date on technology) makes good economic sense It's actually a completel

> On one hand, while harsh, laying off older workers (even the ones who have kept up to date on technology) makes good economic sense It's actually a completely irrational thing to do, you would not get rid of an experienced, productive, loyal employee, unless you are forced into a compensation plan that no longer makes sense and there is no way to diminish that paycheck. In light of the large increase for IT compensation in the last decades, this seems the exception. In my 20s I worked with 60 year olds that were better than all of my young/senior peers, with deep, multidisciplinary understanding of our product, technology and market. This is why I have serious reservations about the way the issue is presented in the article, as purely a prejudice against old age. That would make sense say in the airline industry, driven by the customer's prejudices, but in tech it is simply self-defeating, you are not gaining anything, there is no motive, quite the opposite. That is if, and only if, the employees keep up to date, productive and motivated. A large part of the article is bemoaning how IBM failed their expectations for a job for life where they can retire from. That is a huge warning sign of an employee who no longer competes in the market and sees his paycheck as an earned right.

cimmanom 9y ago
Yup. It's pretty common for a 60-year-old to be 10 times as productive as a 25-year-old in the long run (counting bugs, rewrites, "oops, we built the wrong thing", "oops, this doesn't scale", "oops, this incredibly fragile when we try to extend it") even working 80% of the hours (40 hours to the youngster's 50). And even the highest salaries for the most senior engineers are less than 10x an entry-level programming salary these days. Experienced developers are a bargain.
- Balero 9y ago
  This seems to me to be why people are pushed into management roles. Many of the above savings (especially the big ones) can be more quickly decided at the management level. Also worth noting that you can have been in the industry for a long time, and to not have benefitted. Good experienced developers are a bargain. Bad experienced are still just bad.
  - cimmanom 9y ago
    Sure. Unfortunately, some bean counters don't see the value of the good ones either, though. All they see is "this old guy's making 25% more than this young guy and putting in 20% fewer hours". So they think, "we should get rid of all these overpaid older people and replace them with cheaper younger workers" - not realizing the inefficiency of doing so. There's another side to this, which is that it's possible (even likely at a place like IBM) that long-tenured workers are eligible for pensions that more recent hires won't ever be offered no longer how long they stay. We can argue until the cows come home about the ethics (as opposed to the practicality) of cutting older workers primarily for the purpose of reducing pension obligations - which can be seen as breaking old promises.
mistermann_2 9y ago
Unfortunately, I screwed up the question. As downvotes will have me in the penalty box until sometime later tonight, I made a new username in hopes of salvaging some value from my incomplete original asking of the question as I feel it is an important topic. A hopefully improved asking of the same question: Two employees, one 22 years old, one 50 years old. The younger employee makes $46k, the older employee makes $127k. While the older employee has slightly better useful to the company experience, an omniscient (this is an sincere attempt to stop people from avoiding the question being asked) being would judge the younger employee to have objectively superior cost/benefits to the company. In other words, for the context of this particular question only, the older work does NOT offer experience-based value superior to the younger worker. In some countries, such as the USA, the older employee would be protected by age discrimination legislation. However, not all global companies are limited by the type of worker's rights legislation noted in the article. While this survival of the fittest, hyper-capitalism approach will optimize return on investment and technological innovation, I suspect it is also ~destroying the careers of many high achievers who would likely have outperformed in other fields without having their careers derailed. As well, in a globalized free trade world, this would limit the competitiveness of countries who have passed such legislation. (Once again, our omniscient being above has confirmed this assertion.) Does anyone see a way to reconcile this? Or in other words, how might one explain how this is "no problem, at all"?
- s73v3r_ 9y ago
  Looking at pure numbers, when those are actual people, with lives and families, is the absolute wrong way to frame the question. "an omniscient (this is an sincere attempt to stop people from avoiding the question being asked) being would judge the younger employee to have objectively superior cost/benefits to the company." There's no evidence that's true in the least. "In other words, for the context of this particular question only, the older work does NOT offer experience-based value superior to the younger worker." You might as well be asking about unikitties, then.
  - Slansitartop 9y ago
    > Looking at pure numbers, when those are actual people, with lives and families, is the absolute wrong way to frame the question. It's sad, but so many people on HN seem to think their Econ 101 textbook was teaching them ethics and morality.
cableshaft 9y ago
The people making the decisions are usually much, much higher up, and only see those people as a number that can be cut. Our company has gotten lots of pressure from corporate on that, and they don't care how many people are needed to make things run smoothly, they just see our department as a number of employees that they can cut and cut until there's almost nothing left, and assume we'll still be able to perform all of our responsibilities and satisfy customers without issue. My boss has been fighting a losing battle against them for over a year over it, and we're down to less than 25% of our workforce and struggling to juggle everything now (and have had to severely reduce our support and development capabilities as well).

cimmanom 9y ago

Yup. It's pretty common for a 60-year-old to be 10 times as productive as a 25-year-old in the long run (counting bugs, rewrites, "oops, we built the wrong thing", "oops, this doesn't scale", "oops, this incredibly fragile when we try to extend it") even working 80% of the hours (40 hours to the youngster's 50). And even the highest salaries for the most senior engineers are less than 10x an entry-level programming salary these days. Experienced developers are a bargain.

Balero 9y ago
This seems to me to be why people are pushed into management roles. Many of the above savings (especially the big ones) can be more quickly decided at the management level. Also worth noting that you can have been in the industry for a long time, and to not have benefitted. Good experienced developers are a bargain. Bad experienced are still just bad.
- cimmanom 9y ago
  Sure. Unfortunately, some bean counters don't see the value of the good ones either, though. All they see is "this old guy's making 25% more than this young guy and putting in 20% fewer hours". So they think, "we should get rid of all these overpaid older people and replace them with cheaper younger workers" - not realizing the inefficiency of doing so. There's another side to this, which is that it's possible (even likely at a place like IBM) that long-tenured workers are eligible for pensions that more recent hires won't ever be offered no longer how long they stay. We can argue until the cows come home about the ethics (as opposed to the practicality) of cutting older workers primarily for the purpose of reducing pension obligations - which can be seen as breaking old promises.

mistermann_2 9y ago

Unfortunately, I screwed up the question. As downvotes will have me in the penalty box until sometime later tonight, I made a new username in hopes of salvaging some value from my incomplete original asking of the question as I feel it is an important topic. A hopefully improved asking of the same question: Two employees, one 22 years old, one 50 years old. The younger employee makes $46k, the older employee makes $127k. While the older employee has slightly better useful to the company experience, an omniscient (this is an sincere attempt to stop people from avoiding the question being asked) being would judge the younger employee to have objectively superior cost/benefits to the company. In other words, for the context of this particular question only, the older work does NOT offer experience-based value superior to the younger worker. In some countries, such as the USA, the older employee would be protected by age discrimination legislation. However, not all global companies are limited by the type of worker's rights legislation noted in the article. While this survival of the fittest, hyper-capitalism approach will optimize return on investment and technological innovation, I suspect it is also ~destroying the careers of many high achievers who would likely have outperformed in other fields without having their careers derailed. As well, in a globalized free trade world, this would limit the competitiveness of countries who have passed such legislation. (Once again, our omniscient being above has confirmed this assertion.) Does anyone see a way to reconcile this? Or in other words, how might one explain how this is "no problem, at all"?

s73v3r_ 9y ago
Looking at pure numbers, when those are actual people, with lives and families, is the absolute wrong way to frame the question. "an omniscient (this is an sincere attempt to stop people from avoiding the question being asked) being would judge the younger employee to have objectively superior cost/benefits to the company." There's no evidence that's true in the least. "In other words, for the context of this particular question only, the older work does NOT offer experience-based value superior to the younger worker." You might as well be asking about unikitties, then.
- Slansitartop 9y ago
  > Looking at pure numbers, when those are actual people, with lives and families, is the absolute wrong way to frame the question. It's sad, but so many people on HN seem to think their Econ 101 textbook was teaching them ethics and morality.

cableshaft 9y ago

The people making the decisions are usually much, much higher up, and only see those people as a number that can be cut. Our company has gotten lots of pressure from corporate on that, and they don't care how many people are needed to make things run smoothly, they just see our department as a number of employees that they can cut and cut until there's almost nothing left, and assume we'll still be able to perform all of our responsibilities and satisfy customers without issue. My boss has been fighting a losing battle against them for over a year over it, and we're down to less than 25% of our workforce and struggling to juggle everything now (and have had to severely reduce our support and development capabilities as well).