Google settles a multi-million dollar class action lawsuit accusing the tech giant of age discrimination against potential applicants
- Google has settled a class-action age-discrimination lawsuit, though the tech giant still denies bias against older applicants during its interview process.
- The $11-million settlement will be divvied up amongst more than 200 jobseekers who applied to join Google when they were over 40 years old, according to a Bloomberg report.
- As a part of the settlement, Google will need to train employees and managers about age bias and establish a committee to focus on age-diversity in its recruiting practices.
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Google has settled a class-action age-discrimination lawsuit, though the tech giant still denies bias against older applicants during its interview process.
The $11-million settlement will be divvied up amongst more than 200 jobseekers who applied to join Google when they were over 40 years old, according to a Bloomberg report. The average payout for the 227 members of the class-action case who agreed to the settlement will be $35,000.
The suit - which was settled Friday in a federal court in San Jose, California, according to Bloomberg - was initiated by a job seeker named Cheryl Fillekes, who applied to Google multiple times over a seven year period. Fillekes maintained that she had the technical prowess to land a job at Google, but was repeatedly denied the opportunity because of her age.
According to the report, Google denied that Fillekes met its technical bar. The tech giant also reportedly denied any systematic age-discrimination against Fillekes or any of the former applicants who were part of the case.
Under the terms of the settlement, Google and parent company Alphabet Incwill need to train employees and managers about age bias and establish a committee to focus on age-diversity in its recruiting practices. A Google spokesperson on Monday told Business Insider the company already has policies in place aimed at curbing discrimination, including age discrimination.
Silicon Valley tech companies are often associated with a younger workforce. In 2016, the median age of Google employees was 30 years old. At Facebook, it was 28.
Each year, Google releases a diversity report, which highlights the ethnicity and gender of its workforce and is meant to show the company's progress in creating a more diverse workplace over time. That report, however, does not include statistics about the age of its employees.
A Google spokesperson declined to comment on whether future reports would include age.