Texas residents seeking employment in the tech industry may be interested to learn that a report has stated that IBM was pushing out and terminating employees who were over the age of 40. While IBM has refuted the allegations, ProPublica estimated that the company cut more than 20,000 employees in that demographic, which accounted for about 60 percent of the job cuts the company made in the last five years.
According to the accounts of more than 1,000 former workers, the company began to change its focus in 2014 after falling behind competitors. In order to do this, the goal reportedly became to hire more younger professionals. This was accomplished by not providing the ages of the employees who were being cut. The company also changed its severance policy so that age bias claims had to go through private arbitration.
The company also changed a number of policies that had a major impact on older workers. For example, the company once supported telecommuting but changed the policy to require employees to travel or even move to distant locations or be terminated. Still other former employees said they felt that they were forced to voluntarily retire or face termination.
Although age discrimination in the workplace is illegal, some companies may get creative when it comes to trying to change their workforce demographics. If an employee was terminated or otherwise punished due to his or her age, a workplace discrimination attorney could file a claim against the employer in order to seek compensation for the affected employee. The attorney may use texts, emails and even hiring or firing practices to provide proof of discrimination. For example, an employee who was terminated on the basis of age discrimination may be eligible to seek back and future pay and other amounts.