#ageism

These people keep getting spared every layoff and they're the ones at the water cooler, long overdue for retirement. They are good at showing up on time in a crisply ironed shirt with a positive attitude, much like the old IBMers. But as far as carrying the load when half the team gets axed (strictly according to their manager's own specific preferences and prejudices), the work output won't scale accordingly. They have one speed. The speed of every telephone company. Because every telephone company is comprised of them.

Once you hit a certain age, they start looking for reasons to push you out. I've seen it happen to three people in my team. They treat older workers like garbage.

Especially the 50+ crowd. Then maybe a few slackers. But management/leadership titles? Absolutely safe.

Confirmed 5% RIF including Dinosaurs who would be forced to retire.

Is it true that at Google employees over 50 are viewed as not being in touch with technology and thus, forced out or laid off? I’ve heard this affects women more.

Too many reports of people 55+ being let go in disproportionate numbers.

Anyone from the previous round willing to share their age and salary grade? Curious if the same age groups or grades are being targeted in the cuts rumored for today.

Source below. Summary Below.

• Tech layoffs are disproportionately affecting workers over 40, especially higher-paid senior individual contributors, middle managers, and support roles that are harder to tie directly to revenue.
• Companies are using cost-focused, data-driven layoff models, so roles with high salary costs and lower immediate billable impact become easier targets.
• Cutting experienced workers may improve short-term margins, but it can weaken long-term capability, deal quality, delivery, client trust, and workforce stability.

Tens of thousands of tech workers across the world have lost their jobs this year. Within this global wave of job cuts, one age group is being hit harder than most - professionals in their 40s and above.

The numbers tell a stark story. Last year, nearly 240,000 tech workers were laid off globally. In 2026, the trend is continuing, with over 73,000 jobs already cut across 95 companies so far, including firms like Meta, Oracle, and Microsoft. However, layoffs are not hitting every age group in the tech workforce uniformly. Data shows that higher-paid mid to senior professionals, many in their 40s and 50s, are more exposed to job cuts.

One key reason is their high salary levels. Workforce studies show that companies often cut costs by trimming higher salaries first, and that often overlaps with age. Last year, 64% of workers aged 50 and above said they had experienced age discrimination, and 22% said they felt pushed out specifically because of their age.

There is also a shift in how layoffs are happening. Instead of one-off decisions, many companies now rely on structured, data-driven models. These systems evaluate cost to company, role relevance, and impact on revenue generation. The further a role is from directly generating revenue, the more vulnerable it becomes when a company decides to cut jobs.

As a result, a specific profile is emerging during layoffs. These include mid to senior individual contributors, middle management roles, and support functions such as HR and marketing. While these roles are critical to a company’s operations, they are often harder to link directly to revenue, making them easier targets during cost-cutting cycles.

Surveys from recently laid-off workers reveal that up to 44% of companies have already reduced management layers, and 20% of organizations may cut over half of middle management roles by the end of 2026. This is happening at a time when the job market itself is becoming more uncertain, with multiple economic pressures still playing out.

It remains unclear where the economy is heading. There are shocks to oil and energy prices, along with increases in other costs. It is not yet clear how consumers will respond, and therefore how jobs will be affected in the coming months. The outlook is not expected to be favorable.

This uncertainty is also changing how people approach their careers, especially those who are out of work or trying to re-enter the workforce. The job market terrain is uneven, and in the near term it may not be encouraging for job seekers. At the same time, a trend known as job hugging is emerging, where those who already have jobs are choosing to stay put rather than take risks. This suggests that while current employees may retain their roles, opportunities for those trying to enter or return to the workforce are more limited.

For older workers, the challenge does not end with layoffs. Re-entering the workforce is significantly harder. Data shows that workers over 50 remain unemployed nearly twice as long as younger workers. Only 55% of those aged 55 to 64 find new jobs within three years. For those over 65, that number drops to just 34%, meaning 66% never find another job. More strikingly, one in four workers aged 50 to 65 never return to work after losing their job.

There is also a perception gap. A workplace survey found that 74% of older workers believe their age is a barrier to getting hired. At the same time, age discrimination complaints continue to rise each year, as employers often prefer younger and less expensive workers.

At the industry level, tech companies are reshaping how they allocate spending. More investment is going into artificial intelligence and automation, and this shift is influencing hiring and firing patterns. While layoffs continue across the tech sector, the data shows a clear trend - professionals over 40 are facing increasing challenges in the workplace.

An economist explained that older age groups are affected significantly, but the primary driver is arithmetic rather than intent. A senior individual contributor in their 40s or 50s may cost a company significantly more than a mid-level engineer, often two to four times as much. When companies face pressure to reduce costs by even a small percentage, they must decide whether to reduce billing or reduce headcount. In many cases, they choose to cut headcount, specifically targeting non-billable or less directly revenue-linked roles.

Layoffs are essentially a cost reset. The 40-plus workforce becomes the fastest lever because they sit at the intersection of high cost and low immediate measurability of output. In many service-based models, financial performance is tracked closely through billings and margins. Work that does not directly tie to invoices, such as governance, architecture oversight, and coordination, becomes more vulnerable even if it is important.

There is also what is referred to as a pyramid problem. Organizations typically rely on a structure with more junior employees and fewer senior ones. Over time, promotions and hiring can inflate the number of senior roles. During downturns, companies attempt to restore this balance by cutting higher-cost positions.

While it may seem short-sighted, companies often focus on immediate financial outcomes. As one executive put it, cost is visible every month, while value is harder to measure. Cutting senior roles improves margins quickly in the short term, even though it may erode capability over time in ways that are harder to quantify.

Experience becomes most valuable in uncertain situations such as large deals, complex migrations, crisis management, and pricing strategy. These are not routine tasks and require judgment developed over years. However, removing experienced workers does not immediately break systems. Instead, the impact appears gradually, making it easier for companies to justify cuts in the short term.

Over time, the consequences begin to show. In pre-sales, experienced professionals add credibility, and their absence can reduce success rates in securing large deals. In delivery, projects may slip, rework can increase, and escalation cycles can become longer. While younger teams can handle well-defined tasks, they may struggle when unexpected challenges arise.

Within 12 to 18 months, these issues can lead to client dissatisfaction and churn. Some countries approach this differently. For example, in Germany, experienced workers are more directly tied to revenue through client relationships, product customization, and problem-solving. Removing them would have an immediate negative impact on revenue, so they are better protected.

The difference lies not in culture but in where experience sits within the value chain. In some systems, experience is directly linked to revenue generation, while in others it is positioned in roles that are easier to cut during cost reductions.

Overall, while layoffs continue across the tech sector, the evidence suggests a consistent pattern. Older, higher-paid professionals are disproportionately affected due to cost structures, organizational design, and the increasing use of data-driven decision-making in workforce management.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPSXhKdeXpc

A former Wells Fargo Advisors broker in Brookfield, Wisconsin, has filed a lawsuit accusing the wirehouse of firing him because of his age.

Kenneth J. Schneider, who spent his entire 50-year career with Wells and predecessor firms, claimed that he was terminated at the age of 78 “for the sole pretextual reason” that he used a swear word in the office when talking with his wife, who also worked at the firm, according to a complaint filed last week in U.S. District Court in Wisconsin.

Local Wells managers had “been trying to get Schneider to retire for years,” and younger advisors were given more lenient, “progressive discipline” for similar violations of the firm’s professional conduct policies, according to the complaint.

“Wells Fargo willfully took adverse actions against Schneider because of his age,” the ex-broker’s lawyers wrote in the complaint.

https://www.advisorhub.com/wells-fargo-faces-age-discrimination-claim-from-50-year-industry-vet/

For some reason, this time I've seen fewer older employees affected than usual. Am I wrong?

How many years does one need to grow a company? A lot of people have been RIF’d due to age, pay, or non-performance.
I had to perform each year! I did not get 5 years to show if I’m worth my salary. And did not have a parachute of $42m to go away either

I say the experiment is over, let Sarah and her C-Suite go and find a true leader and visionary. Not a glorified data analyst.

Basically this is a way for a company to downsize older workers (and their higher salaries ) without breaking the law. Its not so much about making it less brutal.

The rest of the workforce is told it's less brutal because those who take severence are about to retire anyway. It simply accelerates that choice.

Legal Requirements

Employers typically offer severance in exchange for the employee signing a General Release of Claims, which prevents them from suing the company for wrongful termination or discrimination.

Review Periods: Under the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (OWBPA), employees aged 40+ must be given 21 days to review an individual agreement (45 days for group layoffs) and 7 days to revoke their signature.
The federal WARN Act requires employers with 100+ workers to provide 60 days' notice for mass layoffs. Failure to provide notice often results in the employer paying 60 days of salary as a penalty, which effectively acts as a mandated severance

In case you missed the earnings report, they have reduced staff by 3% and plan on aggressively reducing staff to be replaced by AI. They consider employees liablities not assets. I have tried and tried to get out but being middle aged is tough. The discrimination is real. I hope the younger generation leaves and doesn't deal with this BS. BTW the employees that are not coming into the office? Their bonuses were NOT impacted. This means they were effectually making more than the rest of us su-kers going in. Unreal.

Another age discrimination lawsuit articlegoing. Funny how at&t claims cursing is code of conduct violation and potty mouth Legg does it all the time.

Link

https://www.nj.com/news/2026/04/att-faces-age-discrimination-suit-after-firing-longtime-nj-employee.html

Some of article below

A longtime AT&T employee in New Jersey has filed a federal lawsuit alleging age discrimination and wrongful termination.

The suit, filed March 31 in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, claims Daniel A. Zuckerman, 62, was demoted and ultimately fired last year without warning in retaliation for opposing discrimination and seeking legal advice.

A longtime AT&T employee in New Jersey has filed a federal lawsuit alleging age discrimination and wrongful termination.

A spokesperson for AT&T called the lawsuit “baseless,” and said the company will defend itself in court.

“This employee was not a victim of discrimination: he was given a new job assignment during an organizational restructure, and he was terminated for violating our Code of Business Conduct,” the spokesperson said.

Zuckerman, of Hillsborough, started his career at AT&T in May 1985, according to the lawsuit. He spent nearly 40 years climbing the ranks before he was fired from the company’s Bedminster office on Jan. 27, 2025.

At the time, he held the role of level-three director as a member of technical staff. However, days before his termination, he was notified that he would be demoted to level two associate director in cybersecurity, effective Feb. 1, according to the complaint.

Zuckerman claims he has never received disciplinary action or a negative performance evaluation during his tenure.

The lawsuit alleges that AT&T maintains a corporate culture of age discrimination which encourages older employees to leave voluntarily, and favors younger employees.

Zuckerman also claims he was instructed in 2014 not to hire a highly qualified 56-year-old candidate because of the candidate’s age.

The lawsuit says the age discrimination originated with top leadership. It points to remarks by former CEO Randall Stephenson in 2016 about AT&T’s aging workforce and need to reinvent itself, and alleges current CEO John Stankey made “outrageously offensive” ageist statements.

During a July 2023 town hall, Stankey stated that the workforce needed younger employees to better match the U.S. population, according to the suit.

I've been at FIS for years. Never once got a bad review. Never been put on a PIP. I showed up every day, did my job, kept my head down. Then they called me into a room without any prior warning and handed me a layoff notice. No explanation beyond the usual corporate language. I'm over fifty. I've given this place a big chunk of my life. And they cut me like I was nothing. Perfect reviews didn't protect me. Being a good employee didn't protect me. Nothing protected me.

People keep trying to make this about generations. Older workers don't get younger workers. Younger workers resent older workers. That's not the real problem. The real problem is the gap between everyone who does the work and the executives who make the decisions. That's the only divide that matters.

Artemis astronaut ages ranging from 47 to 50. They are all GenXers, in a "sweet spot" of maximum competence and experience. Meanwhile at ExxonMobil’s we can’t abuse our Gen X employees enough and can’t run them off fast enough.

Millennials just wait you are next in line.

The hiring managers here
How many people you had not hired because candidate is above 60 years old?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/lawsuits-claim-at-ts-ceo-saw-the-relocation-mandate-as-a-way-to-replace-older-workers-with-younger-ones/ar-AA20YBUD?ocid=BingNewsSerp

Stankey should have a nice read while he’s taking his afternoon dump.

Everyone I know from 40 to 45 lately has been moving to lateral or even jobs they're overqualified for. Has anyone in this age range been able to move up in the last year or so?

JVB the corporate queen of organizational destruction is at it again. Glaring ageism on display and everyone sees it and knows it. Forcing generals out and bringing inexperienced and unqualified barely out of boot camp privates in. She’s earned her reputation and will leave this organization in the same shambles as she left MM sales. Arnoldi forced to take this demoted sales failure should really inspect this spin up junkie before ops becomes another failed more, better, faster experiment.

If EM-service 5 & Age > 35 & CL = 55 then celebrate
Age = Age +1
End loop

I would be curious to hear from folks that feel like they aren’t being considered for spots due to age. I know I have two other bad marks against me, white and male. But I’d honestly like to hear some feedback. More me personally I keep getting told it’s competitive out there but then I think maybe they forget that emails go out with who got selected for positions.

How is HR or someone at the top think this is a good idea. Several highly tenured employees are being put on 30 plans who have never received warnings or prior poor ratings. If this is the plan to move out employees without paying severance, this should be illegal. #concern #ageism #unethicalHRpractice #values #ethics

I’ve noticed a lot of posts from employees who are feeling anxious, especially those with longer tenure. But if you look at the RTO and data science groups, most of the people who ended up on PIPs were actually under 40.
When a manager isn’t technical, they often rely heavily on the more experienced people in the team. Those employees frequently position themselves as “mentors” or “coaches” to younger staff — sometimes as a way to stay relevant. The reality is that in the age of AI and rapidly evolving tools, not everyone keeps their skills current, and performance gaps can show up. In some cases, that wrong team dynamic ends up putting younger employees at a disadvantage.
A big part of the issue is XOM’s structural design. Opportunities aren’t distributed evenly, and we end up having some people doing tasks for years.

https://www.hcamag.com/us/specialization/employment-law/former-att-director-alleges-return-to-office-mandate-drove-out-older-workers/570973

A former director is suing the company for age discrimination related to the RTO and relocation BS. She specifically cites Stankey’s remarks in 2023 about the employee demographics skewing too old. Too much to ask first but boy would it be awesome if they got nailed for this!

You are all missing the point on NRE. It was never about conferring a benefit on older workers. Precisely the opposite. The purpose of NRE was to put pressure on older workers that the company no longer wants and convince them to voluntarily leave at 55 with gratitude to their management who kindly kept them on for a few years as the bogus performance reviews piled up.

The so-called elimination of NRE is likely the combination of two things: 1) no more protection for those who are clearly abusing the system, and 2) dialing up the pressure on the targeted older workers to leave voluntarily with even more gratitude toward the managers who could have let you go but worked the system to squeak you over finish line .

Stop wasting your energy on this lawyering-up cr-p. Not much has changed except that older workers will now find themselves compelled to plant a big wet one on their boss’s backside as they voluntarily exit. Anyone who has made it this far in their career can surely find the strength to pucker up one last time.

If you have been let go, How old were you when you were laid off, and what was your years in service?

Dell is the biggest offender of age discrimination in the industry. Everyone currently being laid off is over 40. Does anyone know someone currently being laid off who is under 40? I sure don't. Fu-K Dell!!

Ok i know this question is unanswerable because there are too many unknowns but here goes. I am early 60s. 30 years with Citi. Mostly 2/3 occasional 1/2. LEA a few years back. I'd like to quit this afternoon but financially I would be better off to stay a couple more years. If I stay they pay me for 3 years and I work. If I get RFI'd they pay me for a year. Does that make any difference?

Ttell FIS management that they don't want to be transferred as Cognizant discriminates age and country of birth.

Provide this evidence
https://www.duanemorris.com/alerts/it_firm_found_liable_intentional_discrimination_against_class_terminated_non_indian_1024.html

They want 50k employees almost universally making less than 6 figures. That means everyone making more than that and over 40 years old need to be made as miserable as possible until they quit. Performance and knowledge DO NOT MATTER. Leadership believes all this work can be done for pennies by AI and offshore. There are plenty of H1Bs out there to replace you in their little slave commune in Frisco, TX, right next door to the new campus. The more of you that leave on your own, the less of you they have to fire. That is how they sleep at night - they think they are doing you a favor by letting you leave on your own terms instead of just firing you outright.

Exactly what @aj+1kn7ewyd6 said.

Anyone else noticing targeting older experienced employees to push them out .?

From the emails and town halls, they are outsourcing some departments in two waves. We are near the end of wave two. We all received the email that future waves are not planned at this time.

But with AI, tension internationally, cheaper international call centers, demand for product changes, who knows what the future looks like.

And to the comment: umm yes, if they let people go they are probably age 40+. The people that continue work here are also over age 40 on average. Not sure why you made a comment on age, oh because you don’t work here.

So in the Morrisville, NC office it seems just about all of the layoffs were older employees 60+. I think there were enough older employees it might be worth a conversation with an attorney. Nothing definite, just get a professional’s point of view.

Well they got me yesterday. I was in the hospital January for a stroke, still recovering and one year away from retirement. The best they could muster was an email. I was the only person let go on my team and also the oldest at 66. The least they could’ve done was a face-to-face layoff but being the cowards they are they hid behind a computer somewhere. In all honesty, I hope they burn to the ground.

It does seem like, on average, older more experienced people were laid off. Anyone else notice this? Our group is half gone, and it's ALL the older folks - I'm not talking really old, just over 40.

Every layoff round seems to disproportionately affect older employees. Is the same true for this one?

Anyone else notice the Cognizant transitions hitting mostly people close to retirement? On my side, everyone 60+ got pushed to Cognizant while younger folks stayed. Feels off—anyone seeing similar across teams? Just curious if it’s a pattern or coincidence.