Reports that IBM practices systemic ageism surfaced this weekend as some former employees are suing the company over discrimination claims.
Nickle LaMoreaux, chief human resources officer, has sent an open letter to IBM employees refuting the claims.
“Discrimination of any kind is entirely against our culture and who we are at IBM, and there was (and is) no systemic age discrimination at our company,” she says.
“The facts are clear: between 2010 and 2020, IBM exited whole lines of business and reinvented itself for an entirely new era of technology and the skills it requires.
“Amidst those significant changes, IBM never engaged in systemic age discrimination, which data confirms.”
She points to figures showing that, 2010 and 2020, 37% of all US hires at IBM were over the age of 40. During this period, the company hired more than 10 000 people in the US over the age of 50, and 1 500 over the age of 60.
In 2020, LaMoreaux says 26% of IBM’s US workforce had been with the company for 20 years or more. At that time, the median age of IBM’s US workforce was 48, the same as it had been in 2010 and six years older than the 2020 median age of all US workers.