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So, actually ... the bias and perception is in the opposite direction, where they believe that older people are "low energy", often just trying to coast to retirement, and of course their salary expectations are higher, whereas the younger ones might be eager to prove themselves, will work harder, often being single and therefore have no problem working late and weekends regularly (for free of course, since the label them "exempt").  There's also the adage about teaching "old dogs new tricks", where they believe younger talent might be more malleable to being molded into their corporate vision, and, frankly, I would hesitate hiring an older guy myself.  Why?  I know LOTS of these older guys who haven't bothered to learn anything new in the past 25 years and simply didn't care to do so.

I'm on the high side of my 50s and, even though I haven't been laid off yet, I have posted my resume to about 2 dozen jobs over the last few months, mostly remote, but a couple even local in the area here.  I think I got very quick dings on about half of them, got exactly 1 interview (and got dinged), and the rest didn't bother to respond.  I used to get a ton of interest, just because I have various things on my resume that sound really cool ... "Lead Software Engineer at NASA", "Systems Architect", "Enterprise Architect" (the last 2 at Fortune 100 banks, etc.).  So just having those on the resume has always elicited many responses ... but not anymore.

This idea that the young is lazy is just a stereotype, sure some sre but it's because they know hard work doesn't get you more rewards. As a young man I learnt the hard way that working hard did not get me a pay raise, your employer just gives you more work. Most companies will just increase prices to increase their profits.

Stereotypes are based on statistics. Statistics are real.

Even if we assume young people are lazier. An employer doesn’t have to pick between lazy young person or hard working old person.

There are many more people seeking jobs than jobs available. This means even small & mediocre employers have the luxury of picking top talent.

So lets say 2000 people apply for a single vacancy (not too unrealistic) 1k are young 1k are old.

Assuming you are right, I’m still certain the top 10 (1%) of young people applying to the job have plenty good work ethic for the job, where even if an older person had better work ethic it wouldn’t be too noticeable in output.

After that point it would certainly be other factors from the youth which greatly triumph “work ethic”. Such as; youthful energy, the fact younger people are more eager to prove themselves early in their career, lack of family responsibilities, not going to retire soon etc etc…

In short, the top 1% of young employees will generally be a better pick than the top 1% of older workers, because both will probably produce similar output, but younger people are more attached to their jobs for the reasons above. And we are in a market where all employers can hire the top 10% or 1% due to the high applicants to vacancy ratio.

Of course it’s more nuanced than that, but I hope you get the point.