July 5, 1999
The Age Factor
By Bob Violino
Anecdotal evidence of age discrimination in IT is growing, but what are
the real reasons?
re some IT
professionals discriminated against because of their age? Despite the serious shortage of
qualified IT staffers, many candidates--particularly engineers and computer
programmers--insist they can't get jobs in the field because of bias against older
workers.
"For legal reasons, you're never going to hear anyone say, `Sorry, you're
too old,'" says Charles Durrett, a 52-year-old network analyst at a consulting firm
in Nashville, Tenn. "But they will say things like, `You're overqualified.'"
Durrett says he left his job at a medical center in Nashville after 13 years when he
wasn't advancing in his career. "I was dead-ended, and age was part of it."
While it's difficult to prove widespread or systemic age discrimination in the
IT industry, the anecdotal evidence is growing. But the real reasons aren't always clear.
Is it strictly an aversion to age, or is it an attempt by companies to keep IT salary
costs down and skill sets current?
Even interested parties aren't sure. "There's a prevailing belief that
anyone over 35 is over the hill," says Bill Payson, president of Senior Staff Inc., a
job-placement company that specializes in older IT workers. Still, Payson admits that in
many cases older workers don't get offers because they have out-of-date skills. But
sometimes even people with appropriate skills are turned away, he says. "I get calls
all the time from people who say they looked like a perfect match for a job, then went in
for an interview and when the interviewer saw gray hair, her jaw dropped," Payson
says.
It's tough to find supporting statistics either way. The Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission, which helps employees deal with discrimination issues, doesn't
track specific complaints by job category, according to a spokesman. However, there were
about 90,000 age-discrimination complaints filed last year, the EEOC says.
The Department of Commerce, in its report on IT labor released last week, cites
"numerous anecdotes of middle-age technical workers having difficulty finding IT
jobs." It offers a variety of reasons, including the fact that many employers assume
mid-career workers are unwilling to work long hours, a perception that these workers
expect higher pay for the same work done by younger workers, and the feeling that older
workers may not be current with the latest skills.
It seems safe to say that experience may not be the most valued commodity,
according to a survey of 200 IT managers nationwide conducted by InformationWeek Research
in May. Though age wasn't specified in the question, only 2% of the managers said they
would most likely hire a worker with 10 or more years' experience. Almost
half--46%--preferred to hire a worker with four to 10 years' experience, while 26% said
they would hire a worker with less than three years' experience, and another 26% wanted an
entry-level worker or recent college graduate.
John Granger, VP of MIS at Furr's Supermarkets Inc. in Albuquerque, N.M., says
he's shocked at the survey results. "We're more likely to go the other way--to look
for people who've been around for a while," he says. The younger workers he hires
tend to be from inside the company. "Often, the stakes are too high to just have an
unknown walk in off the street," he says.
Others aren't as surprised. Karen Engstrom, manager of systems development at
Host Marriott Corp., a $1.4 billion concessionaire at airports and toll stations, is
moving from strict application development toward more systems-integration work. While
programming experience is helpful, she finds that people with years of programming
experience don't want to do integration work. "So we have to find more junior
people," Engstrom says. Also, there's an assumption that people with 10-plus years of
experience are more likely to be skilled in languages that are no longer in use. Higher
salaries may also play a role, Engstrom says.
Some industry groups view the age factor with alarm. Officials of the Institute
of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-USA say members regularly report age
discrimination. "I'm surprised at the numbers of people we've heard from," says
Paul Kostek, president of IEEE-USA.
The 1998 American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act, which increased
the number of skilled nonimmigrant foreign workers allowed to work in the United States,
requires the National Science Foundation to contract with the National Academy of Science
on a study to assess the status of older workers in the IT field. The study will determine
"the existence and extent of age discrimination in the IT workplace," according
to the Commerce Department report. It's due in the House and Senate Judiciary committees
by Oct. 1, 2000.
Alleged discrimination has already resulted in at least one lawsuit. A group of
11 computer programmers filed a class-action age-discrimination suit last December against
Siemens Energy & Automation Inc. in Minneapolis, a power transmission and distribution
subsidiary of Siemens Corp., claiming they were fired in 1997 and replaced by mostly
younger programmers.
"Some reapplied for similar positions after being laid off, but didn't even
get interviews," says Stephen Snyder, a partner at Winthrop & Weinstine, a law
firm representing the programmers, who range in age from the mid-40s to 60. A spokesman
for Siemens Corp. declined to comment on the casebecause it's in litigation.
More To Come
More IT-related age-discrimination suits will soon follow, predicts Norman
Matloff, a professor of computer science at the University of California at Davis.
Matloff, who has testified in front of Congress on the subject, says age discrimination is
rampant in the IT industry and calls the shortage of software engineers and programmers
"a myth." Matloff says there's an "extensive public-relations
campaign" by IT companies--vendors in particular--in part to help generate support
for an increase in the yearly quota of H-1B foreign work visas and what he calls
"cheap labor."
Others in the industry argue just as vehemently that recruiting knows no age
barriers. "We keep getting reports from the same people saying they can't find jobs,
but no one has come up with data proving there's discrimination," says Harris Miller,
president of the Information Technology Association of America. "It's just
anecdotal."
The great demand for some IT skills has raised the expectations of job
candidates, and this may contribute to the fact that some aren't getting hired, says
Andrea Wooten, president and CEO of Green Thumb Inc. in Arlington, Va. Green Thumb
provides IT training to older workers who haven't previously worked in IT.
"With all the talk about the shortage, I think expectations have gotten out
of line," says Wooten, who hasn't seen "blatant discrimination" against
Green Thumb graduates but who says some age bias occurs. "People read articles saying
they can get a $60,000 job after taking an eight-week class. They're shooting for these
higher-paying jobs, so they hold out. We encourage them to take jobs at the entry
level."
