Essay On Age Discrimination In The Workplace

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Over the Hill in IT: Why Ageism in Tech is Getting Old
While it’s illegal to make hiring, and firing decisions based on age, age discrimination is rampant in the tech industry. Proving explicit discrimination may be difficult, but many of the movers and shakers in the technological world make no bones about it; they openly admit to hiring people under 30 years of age. Worse yet, there doesn’t seem to be much of a public outcry against this practice.
In fact, no one batted an eye when 22-year-old Mark Zuckerberg told a Stanford audience: “I want to stress the importance of being young and technical. Young people are just smarter.” Amazingly, there was no backlash for Zuckerberg, and it wasn’t because the media looked the other way; his speech garnered massive amounts of media play. …show more content…

Hiring managers and employers dismiss older workers almost with impunity. Reports of workers being blatantly referred to as “sluggish“ and “obsolete” by their supervisors are fielded in droves by employment advocates. One unfortunate 50-year old was chastised for not being “relevant” by his twenty-something supervisor.
Although, Twitter, Google, and Facebook have all faced lawsuits related to their egregious discrimination against older workers, this has done little to dissuade them from continuing these practices. The millions of dollars in settlements paid out are just a drop in the bucket when compared to the sheer enormity of the revenue pulled in by these organizations.
Unfortunately, for those over 40, ideas about diversity are more inclusive towards combatting racism and sexism; ageism is taking a back seat to the more visible issues. Age bias just isn’t getting the same push-back from the public that one sees with other

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