Your statement is just another affirmation of the theory I’ve been holding. Youth and cheap labor trumps what us old guys can bring to the table. Why pay me $50K or $60K a year for my experience and knowledge when some 24 year old kid is willing to do it for $30K?
Yep, that was their excuse and whether it was correct or not is not up to me. Now whether it actually improved their profit margins or caused them problems is also not known.
But...you are right on, it does happen often (more often than many think) and is probably for financial reason.
Yes, call it old age discrimination if you will. I call it money savings at the risk of their future profits... but what do I know. I always thought that the training and delay in productivity was a negative compared to the immediate results by those experienced programmers.
Have some doubts though that it is actually a savings in the long run - would love to see some statistics on that.