Intel’s Layoffs: What Will Happen to Older Workers?
Intel is about to lay off 12,000 people. This is a company with an enormous amount of intellectual horsepower within its folds. Many with very serious intellectual merit will be out.
The semiconductor industry has shrunk, and there aren’t many employers who can absorb that many highly qualified people.
Last summer, Intel had a layoff, although significantly smaller. Intel has a lot of employees in Oregon, and the cuts impacted that state dramatically. Mike Rogoway (@rogoway) at the Oregon Live did some investigative journalism that highlighted the fact that older employees were let go more easily:
Proportionately, employees in their 50s were three times more likely to lose their jobs than workers in their 30s, according to a document obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive that tallies every Intel employee in the United States. The company was nearly five times more likely to lay off workers in their 60s than those in their 30s.
“Looking at the impact, in this case only, it clearly has disproportionately affected older workers,” said Portland employment attorney Matthew C. Ellis. But he said that’s not necessarily illegal, nor is it unusual.
Mass layoffs tend to skew older, according to Ellis. Older workers tend to cost more because they’ve accumulated years of raises, and in theory those raises reflect accumulated experience.
In practice, though, the skill sets an employer needs may have changed - or a company may see eliminating older workers with larger salaries as the most expedient way to reduce costs.
This means, soon, thousands of highly skilled, gifted, intellectually capable, technically savvy professionals in their forties and fifties will be out on the street with nowhere to go.
more...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sramana-mitra/intels-layoffs-what-will_b_9771880.html
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