Worried you’ll lose your job before retiring? Try these six steps
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Anxiety is looming over the minds of fifty- and sixty-year-olds in Australia at the moment. People who have had long and successful careers lie awake wondering if their number will come before they are ready.
AI, restructuring, or a changing market won’t cut their runway short before they reach their super goals, pay off their mortgage, or thoroughly prepare themselves.
This is not an unfounded fear. Only one in three Australians will retire in 2024-25 because they actually chose to reach retirement age or qualify for a pension on their own terms, according to the ABS.
Everyone else has been pushed out due to ill health, redundancy, caring responsibilities or circumstances far beyond their control. And this was before AI really entered the workforce equation.
Here’s something we’re not telling ourselves loud enough: It won’t be just one type of employee who feels the next wave. There will be everyone doing work that can be replicated faster, cheaper, and more accurately by technology, and that spans every level of an organization.
Great technicians whose AI can now match with precision. People in repeatable service roles, such as data processors, mid-level analysts, and managers. The common thread is not your salary or seniority, but whether your job can be automated.
In a country where productivity has been under pressure for years and is lower than it has been in a long time, businesses of all sizes will be asking themselves exactly this question.
But I want to say this to everyone who is sitting in this anxiety before taking action: Fear is not a strategy. This week on my podcast I spoke to Jannine Fraser, Managing Director of Directioneering, one of Australia’s most respected job placement firms.
He was working every day at the coalface of career transition, and his message was clear. The job market is tightening, positions are taking longer to fill, and many advertised positions are being withdrawn before anyone is hired.
However, the people who do this job well are the ones who are intentional before the incident happens, not after. Here are six things worth doing right now, while you still have time and options.
If you think about your core skills and what really interests you, there are often many more possibilities than you first think.
1. Invest in your employability like an asset
In our fifties, most of us invest our financial assets carefully. We maintain and renovate our homes, review our stock portfolios and sell underperformers. Yet all too often at this stage of life we completely neglect the most valuable asset we have: our ability to work.
Your employability can return more between now and retirement than your home and investment portfolio combined, and most people treat it as a set-it-and-forget-it deal.
Jannine’s advice here makes sense. People going to work in their fifties should include no more than the last ten years of experience on their resume. Hiring managers don’t care what you did in 1998. They want to know what you can do now.
This means staying current in your field, knowing what’s going on in your industry, keeping your LinkedIn presence fresh, and being genuinely curious about where your industry is going.
Staying connected to relevant people in your wider circle is one of the most powerful things you can do to protect your employability. Do this now, not when you need it.
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This might sting a bit, but Jannine brought it up on the podcast and she’s right. How you look physically is important. Not in a superficial way, but in a very practical way.
If you’re walking into an interview wearing a shirt you’ve had in your wardrobe since 2012 with bulging buttons, or if your fitness has slipped to the point where your energy levels indicate it, those things will reflect on a hiring manager.
Her advice is simple: stay fit, look current and be present with energy. Always choose to meet in person over Zoom if you are given that option, and ask for it if you are not given that option.
3. Think of a cage, not a ladder
There’s a pressure later in your career where you feel like you’re either continuing to climb the ladder to bigger, higher-paying jobs, or you’re failing in some way. What if you took a step back and thought of the next stage of your working life as a cage, not a ladder?
The Lattice allows you to move sideways, explore, and pursue topics you’ve been wondering about for years. As Jannine said, if you’re thinking of doing the same job in a different place for the rest of your working life, it’s extremely unlikely.
But if you think about your core skills, experience, and what really interests you, there are often many more possibilities than you can see from where you sit right now.
4. Build your cash buffer
We’ve all heard the old rule about keeping three months’ worth of living expenses as a buffer in case you lose your job; The idea is that three months is roughly how long it would take to settle into another task. However, if you are in your fifties or sixties, this number needs serious rethinking.
Jannine sees senior people working much longer in the current market, where there is more competition, fewer roles and many positions quietly disappearing before they are filled.
Realistically, establishing six to twelve months of accessible living costs, kept completely separate from your retirement fund and investment portfolio, gives you real breathing room.
This means you don’t have to accept the first offer out of desperation, you don’t withdraw investments at the wrong time, and you don’t make panicked decisions under financial pressure.
Park it in a high-interest savings account or easily accessible and reasonably risk-weighted investments where it will yield something useful while you wait, and think of it less as a safety net and more as a negotiation tool.
5. Stress test your financial plan
Beyond the cash buffer, now is the time to take a hard look at your broader financial picture and figure out where flexibility lies. Make sure you know how much you need to spend on your cost of living. Yes – if you don’t have an existing budget, create one.
Make sure you understand your retirement savings goal in and out of retirement. And ask yourself the question most people avoid: If I didn’t hit my big super goal number, what would be the minimum amount I could actually retire with?
Understanding your backdrop gives you options and eliminates some of the panic that comes with worst-case scenario thinking.
Then look at your debt. The last ten years before retirement are one of the strongest financial windows of your life to pay off your mortgage and clear out other things you’re carrying so you don’t drag it into retirement.
If this runway is cut short, there will be pressure on two fronts at once: You may not be able to top up your savings as planned, and you may need to finance your living expenses for longer than expected. Assess your situation more intelligently and model scenarios so you can create a real plan B.
6. Now pursue a topic that aligns with your passions
Here’s a point that rarely comes up in conversations about layoff risk, but I think it’s just as important as the financial part. Jannine made a point in the podcast that stuck with me: If you want to do volunteer work in retirement, do it while you’re still working so you can research where you might want to go.
Because the people who say they’ll get it done rarely do. Connecting with something that interests you before you need it means you already have a place to belong, something to contribute, and a sense of identity that isn’t entirely subsumed in your job title and the exchange of time for money.
You don’t need to make a dramatic comeback. Start with curiosity. As I explore in my book, curiosity works like a cycle: When you find something that truly interests you, it creates its own dopamine-driven momentum.
One small thread leads to another and soon you find a direction. This aspect is what makes the difference between people who get to a good point after a career break and people who feel completely lost.
Bec Wilson is the bestselling author How to Have an Epic Retirement and new releases Prime Time: 27 Lessons for the New Middle Life. Writes a weekly newsletter epicretirement.net and hosts prime time podcast.
- The advice given in this article is general in nature and is not intended to influence readers’ decisions about investments or financial products. They should always seek their own professional advice, taking into account their personal circumstances, before making any financial decisions.
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Bec Wilson is the author of How to Have an Epic Retirement and writes a weekly newsletter for pre- and post-retirees at epicretirement.net.
