Age discrimination in the tech industry is far from a new topic, but now a lawsuit filed against Google over its alleged hiring practices is bringing the topic to the forefront yet again. That's because, as Computerworld reports, the case has the potential to become a "monster" class action suit:
Just over a year ago, two people who had been turned down after applying for jobs at Google filed a lawsuit against the company. They claimed they were rejected because of their age. Both were over 40.
A federal court in San Jose is now being asked to decide whether many others who sought jobs at Google and were also rejected can join this case.
On Wednesday, a motion for conditional certification of collective action status was filed. This motion, similar to a class action, seeks to include "all individuals who interviewed in-person for any software engineer, site reliability engineer, or systems engineer position with Google in the United States during the time period from August 13, 2010 through the present; were age 40 or older at the time of the interview; and were refused employment by Google."
A large number of people may be eligible. Google reportedly gets more than 2 million job applications a year, but it isn't known how many applicants receive in-person interviews.
The lawsuit alleges Google "engaged in a systematic pattern" of discrimination against people over the age of 40. It cited data from Payscale that put the median age of Google's workforce at 29, with a margin of error of 4%. It says the median age for computer programmers in the U.S. is 43.
It's not clear how the case will turn out, and Google has yet to have its day in court.
Meanwhile, one of Constellation Research's core research areas is the Future of Work. We examine how a confluence of technological, cultural and demographic trends is changing where, how and why people work. The merits of the Google lawsuit aside, age discrimination in hiring is overall a self-defeating practice, argues Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Alan Lepofsky.
"A diverse workforce leads to the most well-rounded decisions," he says. "Innovation can come from young employees with bright new ideas, but experience from people that have been there and gone through things is critical as well. I can't tell you how many times I am pitched a great new idea, that is the exact same thing I heard 10 to 15 years ago. Experience and enthusiasm to not have to be mutually exclusive."
Moreover, "reverse mentoring can be one of the most important cultural building blocks of any organization," Lepofsky adds. "Young employees can keep more experienced people in touch with new technology, while those experienced employees can help give guidance and expertise to the new ones."
Technology can play a role in making age discrimination a thing of the past, says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Holger Mueller.
"Bias is inherently part of human decision-making and thus affects HR decisions from talent acquisition, compensation, and transfers all the way to succession management," he says. "With the rise of bi data ata processing capabilities and machine learning, it is now possible to bring some factual and rational aspects in the decision-making. Software doesn't know about race, age and gender, but just about data, and the data that creates the better correlation to success."
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