I was laid off from a tiny tech startup in March 2018, where I was a (self-taught) Senior UX Designer, working on an ed tech app called SpeakAgent. I was 60 years old. I spent more than a year splitting between temp gigs and unemployment benefits until I finally got a new job starting May 2019, which I retired from in late 2022. My unemployment benefits ran out Christmas week 2018. I'm solo, renter, there were times I imagined becoming homeless. I definitely experienced ageism in the interview process. One example stood out: interviewed in person for a UX position, at which time I'd had 3 years experience working in an Agile environment, in a related niche to the company.

The interviewer was about 20 years younger then me. I was told I didn't have enough experience in Agile. Then thanks to LinkedIn I found out they hired a young woman just out of college, who definitely had less experience in Agile or even a professional workplace than I.

If the half of the design department that got laid off was over 50, you should talk to a labor attorney. That's suspiciously an EEOC violation.