The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) was the first news organization to report about the ongoing investigation in an article written by Georgia Wells, entitled: Intel Faces Age-Discrimination Claims. The WSJ article mentions that multiple complaints have been filed with the EEOC in conjunction with several rounds of massive employee layoffs over the last three years. The fact that the EEOC would continue an investigation almost three years after a reported violation indicates that the reported allegations are substantial, in spite of Intel Corp. denial of the charges.
The Oregonian news organization expands the coverage on the subject matter in an article written by Mike Rogoway entitled: Intel under investigation for alleged age discrimination. Rogoway, who covered the Intel Corp. massive employee layoffs back in 2015 and 2016 also provided statistical charts showing a clear correlation between an employee age and their odds of being selected for layoff. In this recent article, Rogoway provides a copy of a previously published chart from 2016, demonstrating the very clear age discrimination factor in the 2016 layoffs. Similar charts are available for the 2015 layoffs.
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| Intel Corp. 2015 Layoffs (click on image to enlarge) |
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| Intel 2016 Layoffs (click on image to enlarge) |
Publicly available information also demonstrates that while Intel Corp. was laying off thousands of its current employees, the company was actually acquiring new employees by the thousands. Many of these employees came in via Intel corp. sponsorship of H1B visas, H4 spousal work visas, "Green Card" sponsorship and F1 to OPT work permits. All of these additions to the workforce involve importation of foreign workers who are at the mercy of Intel Corp. for continued stay and employment in the U.S. In other words, Intel Corp. was actively replacing older workers with imported slave labor.
Intel Corp. Number of employees from Annual Report
(click on image to enlarge detail)
As can be seen from the above information, taken from the Intel Corp. 2016 Annual Report, The number of employees reported at the end of 2015 was 107,300, or about 600 more employees then reported in the previous year. However, since about 1200 employees were laid off mid-year, in July 2015, the the end-of-year number shown in the Annual Report actually represents a gain of 1800 employees relative to the previous year. This gain of 1800 new employees acquired before 2015 year end, contradicts Intel CEO's announcement to employees that the July 2015 were necessary to save on expenses "due to forecast of flat revenue"! Throwing experienced (and older) employees off the bus in order to replace them with cheaper newcomers, is the more likely explanation.
Similarly, in 2016, Intel Corp. laid off about 12,000 employees, yet the difference between the numbers reported for the end of 2016 are 106,00, thereby reflecting an effective gain of 10,700 employees (106,000 - (107,300 - 12,000)) = 10,700.
Where did Intel Corp. acquire the replacement employees? According to a recently published Pew Research Center report: "By the end of the 2004-2016 period, there were a total of 1,474,000 OPT approvals and 1,473,000 initial H-1B visa approvals".
Layoffs of older U.S. citizen employees not only manifests employment costs savings due their higher salaries, but also cuts on the cost of medical insurance expenses for a self insured company like Intel Corp. It is taken for granted that medical insurance costs tend to rise with the age of older employees and their dependents. If induction into employment of almost 3 million imported slave laborers in the high tech sector is not a significant economic factor in this lucrative sector of the U.S. labor market, what is?
Intel Corp. attitude towards lowering the cost of labor led company management to commit law violations by conspiring, along with Apple, Adobe and Google to halt competition for employee recruitment in the Bay area and by doing so curbing potential employee pay escalation. The company was engaged in this practice for over a decade since 2001. Court records show that Intel Corp. was forced to settle its ill behavior with its employees, following a court ruling in 2013 (see United States District Court of Southern California - San Jose, Case No. 11-CV-02509-LHK).
Taking the significant risk of engaging in an anti-competitive illegal activity is a clear indication of the high priority that company executives and the board of directors gave to curbing payroll costs. Clearly, Intel Corp. never refrained from its quest to curb employee compensation and was looking for every avenue to achieve its goals. The evidence points to systemic changes in the company's HR practices, enacted by company executives to get rid of older workers and replace them with cheaper workers. The 2015 layoffs, in which about 1200 employees lost their jobs, seem to be a small scale "experiment" that was meant to serve as a learning tool for company executives before executing the "magnum opus", the massive layoffs of 2016.
While Intel Corp. is not the only company to utilize the F1 to OPT loophole to circumvent the H1B visa quotas, utilization of such loophole is certainly one of the tools that the company utilizes to recruit cheap, captive workers. Public records show that Intel Corp. was the number one company to sponsor F1 to OPT foreign worker visas, with twice as many records registered as Microsoft corp. (see chart below).
Layoffs of older U.S. citizen employees not only manifests employment costs savings due their higher salaries, but also cuts on the cost of medical insurance expenses for a self insured company like Intel Corp. It is taken for granted that medical insurance costs tend to rise with the age of older employees and their dependents. If induction into employment of almost 3 million imported slave laborers in the high tech sector is not a significant economic factor in this lucrative sector of the U.S. labor market, what is?
Intel Corp. attitude towards lowering the cost of labor led company management to commit law violations by conspiring, along with Apple, Adobe and Google to halt competition for employee recruitment in the Bay area and by doing so curbing potential employee pay escalation. The company was engaged in this practice for over a decade since 2001. Court records show that Intel Corp. was forced to settle its ill behavior with its employees, following a court ruling in 2013 (see United States District Court of Southern California - San Jose, Case No. 11-CV-02509-LHK).
Taking the significant risk of engaging in an anti-competitive illegal activity is a clear indication of the high priority that company executives and the board of directors gave to curbing payroll costs. Clearly, Intel Corp. never refrained from its quest to curb employee compensation and was looking for every avenue to achieve its goals. The evidence points to systemic changes in the company's HR practices, enacted by company executives to get rid of older workers and replace them with cheaper workers. The 2015 layoffs, in which about 1200 employees lost their jobs, seem to be a small scale "experiment" that was meant to serve as a learning tool for company executives before executing the "magnum opus", the massive layoffs of 2016.
While Intel Corp. is not the only company to utilize the F1 to OPT loophole to circumvent the H1B visa quotas, utilization of such loophole is certainly one of the tools that the company utilizes to recruit cheap, captive workers. Public records show that Intel Corp. was the number one company to sponsor F1 to OPT foreign worker visas, with twice as many records registered as Microsoft corp. (see chart below).
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| Click on image to enlarge detail |
Both the WSJ and the Oregonian articles provide new exposure to issues that we have been covering in this web site for the last two years. We encourage our readers to refer to several of our previously published articles, including:
- Useful diagrams for explaining Intel Corp selection of employees for termination in 2015 and 2016
- The Cheap Labor Loophole - OPT is the Name of the Game
- Open Letter to Rep. Susan Bonamici
- Investigation Reveals Silicon Valley’s Abuse of Immigrant Tech Workers
- Intel Corp. Sponsored 10,168 H1B Visas In 2017
- Coal Miners, H1B Visa, George Orwell and Alternative Facts
- 40 Year-old Retirees - Age Discrimination in the News
Further recent information regarding the ill practices that high tech employers are using to substitute older workers with cheaper workforce are covered by Peter Gosselin in these ProPublica articles:
All the best.
--Dr.Flywheel
