Federal Watchdog Launches Investigation of Age Bias at IBM

US (ProPublica) – The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has launched a nationwide probe of age bias at IBM in the wake of a ProPublica investigation showing the company has flouted or outflanked laws intended to protect older workers from discrimination. More than five years after IBM stopped providing legally required disclosures to older workers being laid off, the EEOC’s New York district office has begun consolidating individuals’ complaints from across the country and asking the company to explain practices recounted in the ProPublica story, according to ex-employees who’ve spoken with investigators and…

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Women are Less Likely to be Replaced by Robots and Might Even Benefit From Automation

(Conversation) – Research shows women are better positioned than men to resist the automation of work and possibly even benefit from it. Women are overrepresented in industries that require high levels of social skills and empathy (such as nursing, teaching and care work), where it would be difficult to replace a human worker with automation. Women in advanced economies also have, on average, higher levels of education and digital literacy, giving them a comparative advantage in a labour market that is continuously transformed by technological innovation. The fear that robots…

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