‘What am I getting wrong?’: Losing a job at 40 isn’t the same as in your 30s
Singapore needs to make better use of workers’ accumulated expertise when the job axe falls.
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Singapore cannot afford to let decades of accumulated career capital vanish overnight. Learning to redeploy this expertise is an imperative not just for the individual, but also for the economy.
ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
Uma Thana Balasingam
Earlier in 2026, I started working with Daniel (not his real name), an operations and business transformation leader in his late 40s, made redundant after two decades across global companies.
On paper, this is the kind of talent organisations prize. But when Daniel’s company restructured, the role dissolved and what followed was a pattern I see all too often as a career adviser: senior roles shrinking or being redefined, accompanied by feedback that sounds like a broken record – overqualified, under-matched or not hiring at this level.