This ain't about race, this is about the data, and the algorithm, that shows firing skews towards older (over 40) workers in the US, which is against the law. In all these cases, Intel legal will advise, and the top brass will decide on the level of risk they are willing to tolerate to improve the bottom line, and on how far policy can go before it really backfires.
The EEOC has not yet made a notable example of any corporation going after older employees, and the problem has gotten worse over time, not just at Intel, but throughout corporate America as they toss older workers for younger ones.
Until the EEOC gets serious and really penalizes a company to create an example, we will see companies incrementally being more risk-taking in terms of cherry picking firing algorithms, with plausible deniability, that disproportionately impact workers over 40. The data from Intel itself clearly shows this result, and it is naive to think that the CEO and head of HR are not smart enough to see that same data and know exactly what they are doing.
In the past, Intel might have waited a few months to hire after a round of firing. Even CRB encouraged internal redeployed hiring before opening external reqs. BK doesn't care. His treatment of employees is immoral.
This was posted by @OOKJhLE-1rgc in a thread that I am assuming many have skipped. This is an excellent point that should be brought up more. The laying off of older employees has become pretty much an adopted practice not just by Intel, or even tech companies, but everybody. It's an epidemic, and if EEOC is doing nothing about it, what is their point?