UK Edition
Lisa Phillips has been through a rough patch after being made redundant almost a year ago.
“In normal circumstances, I would have just said ‘oh well, it is one of those things’,” says the 55-year-old from South Wales. “But with a pandemic, I don't think any of us knew how that was going to pan out.”
It was the third time in seven years that her job had disappeared, this time at a consumer finance business who had struggled with the lack of spending and rising debts during lockdown.
Phillips knew what to do next: stay disciplined and treat the job search in a structured way just like a normal work day.
But her normal playbook didn’t seem to work amid the biggest recession in 300 years.
“Contacts in the recruitment industry were saying ‘we’re on furlough, we’ve had to let people go ourselves, the jobs are not coming in’. It was pretty scary, the first few months,” she says.
As a woman aged over 50, Phillips is among one of the groups that has been hit hardest by the pandemic recession.
The blow to jobs has struck in something of a u-shaped pattern, with the very youngest workers typically suffering the most, followed by those at the older end of the spectrum. Workers in the middle are less likely to have been harmed.
At the start of the pandemic under-25s bore the brunt of redundancies, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), but in recent months over-50s have become the most likely to lose their jobs.
By the end of March, almost 1.2m over-50s were still on furlough. Over-65s account for more than 170,000 of those, amounting to 17pc of all workers in that age bracket - the highest share of any group aged over-25.
The unemployment rate for those aged between 50 and 64 jumped twice as fast as it did for 25-34 year olds over the past year, according to the ONS.
Tony Wilson, chief executive of the Institute for Employment Studies, says this is an extremely sharp turnaround in a long trend of rising employment for older workers.
“This is the most pronounced impact we have seen in two generations,” he says, adding that self-employment is popular among older workers, and those who work for themselves have struggled particularly severely.
Once they are unemployed, mature workers’ prospects are typically worse than those of younger jobseekers.
Almost one-third of unemployed over-50s have been seeking work for more than a year, compared to just shy of one-fifth in younger age groups.
“Older workers will often take a bigger hit from losing their jobs - it will have bigger impacts on their confidence, they will feel less able to search for work, and are more likely to think their time is up,” says Wilson.
“There is also discrimination. More often than not, it is that employers do not think about older workers in the same way as they do about younger workers, ethnic minority groups or women when they are thinking about inclusive employment practices.”
If they do get a new job, it often comes with a lower salary than their old role.
Nye Cominetti, economist at the Resolution Foundation, found over-50s returning to work after a spell of unemployment typically face a pay cut of around 10pc on an hourly basis or 17pc on a weekly basis.
“You do not see that at all for young people, and for mid-career workers you see it but to a much lesser extent,” he says.
He says older workers tend to have skills which are very specific to their job or industry, and so spend more time looking for a job which matches their know-how.
If they cannot find such a position, it means taking a job to which they are less well suited.
This problem is likely to be worsened by the pandemic as the economy becomes more digital.
Training might help, but seasoned workers are more likely to think they are too old to learn something new, according to research from the Learning and Work Institute.
Education can also lack the flexibility required to fit around the demands of work or family.
Claire Guichard, 53, who lives in Lincolnshire, is among those who have taken the plunge and retrained after losing her job in a charity shop in September.
“I just had to wait it out and keep applying for jobs until something came up,” Guichard says. She finally took a course in online business sales and marketing, which gave new ideas to expand what had been her side job at weekends and evenings.
“I’m a clairvoyant and medium. A lot of my business was face to face, going to events,” she says. But now “a lot of it I can do online as well”.
David Pugh, chief executive of PRIME Cymru, a charity which helps over-50s start a business or get back into employment, says rapid shifts in home working in the past year pose another challenge.
“Those who have kept working have transitioned to working from home. But those who have been furloughed and have not experienced that, it is going to be hard,” he says. Online interviews are new to many workers, as is settling into a job remotely: “If you are not used to it, it can be very daunting.”
Phillips knew she would have to try something new, away from her old job in financial services.
Initially, she took courses to become a Reiki practitioner, envisaging offering sessions from home once face-to-face jobs are back up and running. She paid for classes in sales to learn how to market a new business.
But in the end she took a completely different direction.
Encouraged by a mentor from PRIME Cymru, Phillips joined the civil service in November, six months after being informed of her redundancy.
Remote working means she has never met her new colleagues, and had to adapt to using a home office. But she is delighted with the job. “This role was meant to be. I’m seizing the moment and making the most of it.”
To those who are out of work Phillips says: “Don't give up. Always remember it was the role that was made redundant, not you.”