[jxfreeman]

Pensions and other benefits run about 36% of base salary nationally (meaning it could be higher or lower for IBM). College grads aren't usually vested in their pensions, so they may be paid higher salaries and net a lower expense to the company. What's aggravating (especially from the younger posters) is the assumption that older people aren't/won't stay current. Currency is a dubious argument, if you're wedded to an older product, the new stuff doesn't benefit you directly on the job. After that comes quality/rates of errors. Younger employees tend to make hard-learned mistakes long after the older engineers have learned the same lessons. So cost/value isn't the same when comparing older and younger engineers. In the "real" engineering fields, younger engineers are universally required to work directly under licensed (read: older) for precisely this reason. It prevents preventable mistakes.