HOURWith hundreds of job applications, grueling searches and repeated rejections, the experience of trying to get back into work after losing a job in their 50s and 60s has proven to be a difficult ordeal for some Brits.
For some, these efforts prove fruitless and result in job seekers being reluctant to take early retirement. Others may have to rely on benefits to pay bills while they continue to look for work.
Recent research from the Center for Better Aging found that the number of people aged 50 to state pension age having difficulty finding work was 918,000 – similar to the number of young people without education, work or training – at the end of last year, the highest level since 2020. That number was 2.9 million when people with chronic illnesses and caregiving responsibilities were included.
The Guardian asked people over 50 to get in touch and share their experiences of trying to get back to work.
“I can’t find a way out of this situation”
James, 59, who lives in south-west England, lost his job two years ago and has since had “eight interviews out of 598 job applications.”
“It was terrifying… and very stressful,” he says. “I have all the applications listed in an Excel file, none of which were successful for the positions advertised, although I was able to get some other pieces of work as a result of them. Overall I have barely worked, maybe not worked much, for two years and I can’t find a way out of this situation.”
James, who worked in international development, says that when he applied for jobs in the early 2020s, he had “an interview for every 15 or 20 applications” but now “it’s about one in 80 applications.”
He currently edits articles occasionally for organizations in his sector and does some freelance writing for a magazine.
“It’s tiny, but it’s something,” he says. “I also live in the home of a relative who very kindly said that I do not need to contribute to the costs at the moment, but I rely on my savings when I need them.”
He says job reviews are “never shared, so I don’t understand why I’m failing.”
He adds: “I wonder if age is an issue. Perhaps companies think a younger person will be more flexible, more capable, and they can adapt him to their particular way of working. The only thing to do is persist and hope.”
“Looking for a job is sometimes more difficult than doing it”
Sally*, 52, who has worked in the charity sector and lives in Birmingham, says she has applied for “over 100 jobs” but is “still not biting”.
She had had 17 interviews in the past 10 months and was baffled by the immediate rejection of a job for which she seemed well suited.
“I’ve applied for lower and higher level positions, temporary and part-time, some outside my field but I feel my skills could add value, and also some roles I don’t really need but I’m desperate,” she said. “I’ve been immediately rejected for roles that seemed written for me, and interviewed for roles that I was considered for long term. It’s tough out there.”
Sally, who receives unemployment benefits, adds: “Looking for work can sometimes be harder than doing it, not to mention the impact on your self-esteem, pocket and relationships.”
She’s not sure if age is a factor, but thinks it may be “part of the mix.”
“I wondered if assumptions were being made, if there might be bias, if there was an underlying sense of threat? But I have to stop myself from going down that path. It won’t help my sense of self because it’s something I can’t change.”
“After three years of searching, I gave up searching and retired.”
David*, 66, who has worked in IT for 35 years, says he was hoping to find a job after being made redundant at the start of 2020, but after three years of searching he was still unable to find a job.
“After being laid off, I used the Covid-19 period to plan for retirement and move,” he says. “In 2021, I started looking for a new job.”
Although David, who lives in the north-east of England, knew his IT experience was “outdated”, he says he was content to find “part-time work, temporary work, minimum wage or zero-hours contracts”.
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“Part of me was expecting to be able to get a job stacking shelves in a supermarket,” he says.
However, he found that the labor market was much more difficult than expected.
“In 2024, I gave up and retired,” he says. “I applied to all the supermarkets and never received a response.”
He says he approached one well-known store only to see his chair on TV “complaining about how difficult it was to find staff because of the Brexit deal”.
“As a fifty-year-old woman, I feel invisible in the workplace and in public life.”
In 2022, Liz, 51, took a six-month break from her career to care for her dying father.
She returned to work in 2023; First, she took on a temporary part-time leadership position that was a pregnancy cover. After this, she took on a “fairly junior role”, thinking it would “hold on” until she got a more senior position.
But now, more than two years later, she is still working in the same job, despite applying for other positions.
“I applied for over 100 jobs and only had a handful of interviews,” says Liz, who works in education and lives in London. “I think it’s my age, but also my gender. I’m worried that I won’t be able to return to a management position. I feel tired and drained from the whole job search experience.
“I feel like I’m being disqualified. But I’m not alone: many of my friends around the same age as me have similar problems, and I also understand that there are people who can’t find work at all.”
She says she initially thought her failures in interviews were solely due to her own shortcomings.
“I thought, well, there must be something wrong with me, with my profile, with what I say, with the way I interview. You’re doing introspection.”
She recalls how, shortly before one of her interviews with a charity, a member of the interview panel approached her and asked her: “Do you always dress so formally?”
“I felt that this was a very personal reference to my age, and this obvious bias was the reason for not hiring me,” she says. “I’ve worked with young people my whole career. At another charity I was told I lacked ‘presence’. What can I do about it?”
She adds: “There are a lot of people like me in the industry I’m applying to, which means employers have a choice. I feel invisible in the workplace and in social life as a woman in my fifties. I just feel like experience isn’t valued anymore.”
*Names have been changed
