SINGAPORE – Raj Bharij lost his job in 2026 when his employer, a global bank, restructured.
“I’m 50 years old,” he recalls thinking, when told of the retrenchment in April. “Is anyone going to actually hire me now?”
Six months on and more than 100 applications later, the former transformation director is still searching for his next job.
He has received “instant” rejections, within seconds, from some firms’ automated systems, and radio silence from others. An artificial intelligence chatbot tasked with helping to refine his resume suggested he take five years off his age.
Bharij and other mature jobseekers whom The Straits Times spoke to believe that being older and more experienced has somehow made their job search harder.
Their experiences highlight a question facing Singapore: Even as older workers are encouraged to remain in the workforce for longer, will employers be willing to hire them?
Singapore will raise its retirement age to 65 and re-employment age to 70 from Jan 1, 2029 – one year ahead of an earlier target.
This was announced on Oct 26 when the Government accepted recommendations from the Tripartite Workgroup on Senior Employment aimed at helping older workers remain in meaningful employment for longer.
The move comes as the Republic’s population ages. The share of workers aged 50 and above in the workforce grew from 34% in 2015 to 40% in 2025, and is expected to rise further, a report by the workgroup said.
Gurmit Singh Kullar, 52, left his job as a marketing director in July 2024 after experiencing burnout. Re-entering the workforce after a six-month break has proven an uphill task.
Many marketing roles these days, he found, merge what would previously have been three jobs into one, effectively denting the value of his past experience.
He applied to more than 200 openings in less than two years. When he did not hear back from prospective employers, he widened his search to include more junior or mid-level roles that paid just half of what he had been earning.
Still, they did not bite. Hiring managers sometimes commented he had too much experience. “Isn’t it better for you to have someone more qualified?” he wondered.
He attended career counselling and a handful of courses to learn new skills, where he encountered other mature jobseekers in a similar situation.
“Have you heard this line from people, that you’re overqualified?” he was asked by a man who had been retrenched from the insurance industry. “All the time,” he replied.
Older workers are taking longer than others to find new work after losing their jobs, data from the Ministry of Manpower shows.
In the second quarter of 2026, 42% of people in their 50s and 39% of those over 60 found new jobs six months after a layoff, compared with 61% for those in their 40s.
A study by researchers, including Lee Zeewan from the National University of Singapore, found that 47% of employers surveyed were likely to hire workers in their 50s, compared with 35% who were neutral and 18% who were unlikely to do so.
That number fell to 33% for workers aged 60 and above, they said, in a paper published earlier in 2026.
Kirsty Poltock, a country manager for Singapore at recruitment firm Robert Walters, notes that the difficulties which older jobseekers describe come as the market grows tougher for candidates in general, and firms’ hiring slows.
She surmises that the labour market has become “less forgiving about a mismatch” between jobseekers’ existing experience and the skills which firms are looking for, but believes there are still opportunities for workers in their 50s, having regularly placed such candidates in new roles.
Contract work is one area that could play to senior workers’ strengths, she said, as more companies hire for non-permanent roles on a one- or two-year horizon as the economic outlook weakens.
People who can articulate how their experience could help firms transform their human resources or finance operations, for instance, are seen as valuable hires, Poltock added.
As their search for new work continues, Bharij and Gurmit are also having to deal with the emotional toll that being unemployed later in life brings, after having grown accustomed to the rhythm of work over decades.
“The loss of identity is massive,” said Bharij, who used to describe himself as someone who worked at a bank.
He has started a monthly session, named Stopover, where people navigating a layoff can dial into a free virtual meeting to share their stories and work through the fallout together.
Gurmit does yoga – “it helps me get out of the house” – and meets up with friends to help stay positive. “It’s very easy to get lost in your current struggle,” he said.
At an employment fair in Choa Chu Kang last month, 62-year-old Jason, who asked to be identified only by his first name, was out looking for a new job.
After years of work in community services, he resigned after feeling compelled to make way for younger staff, only to find it difficult to secure another job in the sector.
What he did find was a job as a security officer, which he tried out but found too tiring. It involved 12-hour shifts each day, with one day off after three days, and another day off after four.
He interviewed for another security position at the fair, even as his hope was to find something more relevant to his interests and background in community work, he said.
“I have (skills),” he added. “I am just waiting for people to discover it.”
