I think there's only a small cultural bias towards youth and a lot of the age discrimination is an exaggeration. Lots of laid off people I've worked with who had 35+ years under their belt can be entitled and are often cruising by. They're the same ones posting on forums about how they were kicking a-- then unfairly targetted out of the blue. No matter how much you know about obscure systems, if you cruise too long you end up at the back of the line for the lifeboat.
That recent youtube video summarizing propublica said that 60% of layoffs were of employees 40 or over. Think about those two values relative to the length of an IT or engineering career and how little they actually fit the narrative and that's the pivot point they actually went with!
Originally posted by @SMWeDdQ-2ssk.