Job-search struggles of vulnerablePMETs aged over 40

​Ms Melinda Eng, 50, left her general manager job in mid-2016, when the business environment turned sour and her company, which produces advertising accessories, could no longer afford to pay her monthly salary of $5,000.
Over the next four years, she applied for well over 100 jobs but met with little success. The few prospective employers who met her would not believe she would accept markedly lower remuneration packages.

She eventually tried a handful of jobs, from car sales and selling car insurance, to private-hire driving and as kitchen help. But none lasted, as they suited her poorly.

"When I went into car sales, they told me they usually don't hire people who are so old. I was only 46 then," said Ms Eng, who helps support both her parents.

She ran into financial difficulties last year when she could not keep up with payments for her home renovation loan and finally took up a debt repayment scheme, a government-regulated plan to facilitate repayment of unsecured debts to creditors and avoid bankruptcy.

She now works for a household products importer as a clerk, earning $2,500 a month. Ms Eng hopes the job will help tide her over her financial difficulties.

Her experience is not unusual. It is a story told many times by other professionals, managers and executives (PMEs) who have experienced relatively long periods of unemployment and underemployment.

The year she left her managerial job in 2016 was when retrenchments in Singapore hit 19,170. That figure fell to 10,690 last year, but with professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) accounting for about three in every four.

Taking the hardest hit are PMETs aged over 40, who make up 70 per cent of retrenchments. Long-term unemployment rates for residents rose for the second consecutive quarter to 0.9 per cent in December last year, from 0.8 per cent in September last year.

PMETs who have experienced long-term joblessness - being unemployed for 25 weeks or more - say they are especially hard hit because of how quickly the world has evolved with digitalisation in the last 20 years and keen competition from younger entrants to the job market.

"A younger person can manipulate an Excel spreadsheet much faster. Of course I can't compete, I was born at a time when we didn't even have television," said human resource manager R. Lam, 64.

"We can adapt of course but it is a lot harder. We are not like people in their 30s, and bosses are not patient enough to wait."
He still remembers the time between 2003 and 2007, when he applied for hundreds of jobs with no success while having to support a wife and three growing children.

"It is really a struggle when you have family responsibilities and you are not employed," he said. The Government has implemented a range of programmes in recent years to retrain mature workers and help them find jobs. One of its latest initiatives is the Career Support Programme, which gives salary support of up to 18 months to employers who hire mature long-term unemployed PMETs.

While the Government and the local labour movement have been pushing for re-employment of older workers, society needs to accept the older worker, said National Trades Union Congress assistant secretarygeneral Patrick Tay. "Because of our ageing population, it makes those who are over 40 extremely vulnerable. Our retrenchment numbers are not big but PMETs make up over 70 per cent," said Mr Tay.

​"Society as a whole needs to embrace the ageing workforce … How open are we to hiring mature workers? This is very important," he added.

"Then it's also down to mature workers themselves... to equip themselves with in-demand skills. You can't stop learning, because your skills quickly become obsolete."