IBM Fired 100,000 Aged Employees To Look ‘Cool’, ‘Trendy’; Slapped With Lawsuit For Discrimination

IBM has been digging a hole for itself when the multinational corporation started firing its employees based on age. They further added fuel to the fire when they gave the whole process a cool nickname and justified it thus. 

Apparently, the Big Blue, which is IBM’s nickname, is doing all this in an attempt to be as ‘cool’ as Google. 

A lawsuit has been filed against IBM by a former vice president of IBM, and this is not the first time that such an accusation of age discrimination has been made against the leading technology company.

Age Discrimination Lawsuit Filed Against IBM

IBM, which is short for International Business Machines Corp has been accused of firing as much as 100,000 employees in the past few years. Apparently, the corporation fired its employees to give a boost to the new initiative of hiring young workforce for the organization.

A former Vice President of the company, Alan Wild has filed this lawsuit on behalf of Jonathan Langley, claiming that, “laid off 50,000 to 100,000 employees in just the last several years.” Jonathan Langley, aged 60, has been laid off by the organization after working there for a whopping 24 years.

The deposition also says that the company is trying too hard to be as cool as Google and Amazon. A part of IBM’s attempt to show millennials that it is not “an old fuddy duddy organization”, is to let go of people that are older.

In a statement, IBM said, “We have reinvented IBM in the past five years to target higher value opportunities for our clients. The company hires 50,000 employees each year.”

Not The First Time: Previous Lawsuits Against IBM 

This is just another addition to the plethora of lawsuits filed against IBM for targeting people based on their age. Previously, the company was criticised for describing older employees as  ‘old heads’ and ‘grey hairs’.

IBM is going through a sharp decline in its share revenues, which might be the main reason behind the layoffs, and has fired numerous employees in the US, Canada, and other places. The organization is clearly trying to lower its costs, and restructure the organization overall. 

IBM has previously been in the news for hiring millennials, and to attract them towards the company, they had drafted a blog, The Millennial Experience, and a Twitter hashtag as well, #IBMMillennial. However, is firing older and experienced employees the ethical way to get youngsters to work for IBM?