Difficult for us to reskill even in our 30s

We watched bits & pieces of PM Lee’s speech tonight and the part that caught our eye was him saying the Government’s biggest priority now is jobs. He highlighted these groups of particular concern:

• People in their 40s and 50s who have to take care of their children and support elderly parents
• Mature workers who are nearing retirement
• Lower-income workers 
• Self-employed and freelancers
• Fresh graduates

While we currently do not fall into any of these groups, we are just beginning to understand the financial strain of taking care of children and supporting elderly parents. It’s only going to get worse for us so we follow closely the challenges faced by middle aged PMETs now because that’s essentially what we will face in a decade’s time. The problems start after they get retrenched and the focus seems to be on reskilling and retooling them for new jobs.

Even now in our 30s with a 7 month old baby, it is increasingly difficult to find time to learn new skills and tools outside of our jobs. Takes longer to pick up and understand new knowledge as well. It’s not just about attending trainings and courses then get placed into a job after. Because any job still requires experience to do it well. So this really means a restart in our careers and competing with younger people that have minimal financial obligations, have more time, are faster and more adaptable than us. Just imagine us doing it all over again but with kids and parents to support.

Which means our focus is on ensuring longevity in our careers in a time when things move and evolve so quickly. For us to understand how to protect our jobs and avoid retrenchment, we look at the middle aged PMETs that we know personally. Some are doing well and will probably continue to thrive (even if they lose their jobs) – positive outcome. While others are struggling and still trying to find their way (problems made worse especially if they lose their jobs) – negative outcome. We reckon there are differences between these 2 groups in terms of attitudes, behaviours and values that contributed to these outcomes.

We are not going to generalise to say this is the case across the board. But our observations are for our own consideration only. The important thing is that these differences in attitudes, behaviours and values didn’t happen overnight. They started in the 20s, got established in the 30s and later entrenched in the 40s and 50s. Which means it’s what we did in our 20s and what we do now in our 30s that make all the difference. Tough to change anything in our 40s and 50s unless we get forced into it. It’s also about how well we understand ourselves, the value we bring to the organisations and how well we protect and grow that value.

Career growth is like investing. We take the small steps now in our jobs and they add up to a lot in the future. Just like how investing early compounds returns so much more over time. It’s interesting how we have taken the same approach with our careers as investing – to focus on long term gains using less effort over time. We don’t look for big wins but try to achieve consistent small wins. The question becomes whether we have done enough in our 20s and will do enough in our 30s to avoid the negative outcome in our 40s and 50s.