09-07-2016
Four former employees are suing Hewlett Packard, Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise ("HP") for age discrimination. These individuals are seeking class action status.
The four individuals range in age from 52 years of age to 62 years of age. They were part of a Workplace Reduction Plan that included cutting 27,000 jobs. It is the belief of the four workers that the Plan targeted older workers. According to the Complaint, HP"s human resources had written guidelines that required 75% of outside hires be right out of school or "early career" applicants. Also cited in support of their theory was CEO Meg Whitman"s statement that HP needed to "reshape and re-calibrate" its labor force to include more younger people. "If you don"t have a whole host of young people who are learning how to do delivery or learning how to do these kinds of things, you will be in [for] real challenges." The workers claim that a disproportionate amount of younger workers were hired after the layoffs.
HP has denied the allegations, claiming that the workplace reductions were based on legitimate factors that were unrelated to age.