‘Older’ Workers Face Bias in Youth-Oriented Singapore : Jobs: There aren’t many out pounding pavement in society that boasts nearly full employment. But half of the jobless workers are at least 40 years old.

In an affluent society like Singapore with nearly full employment, being jobless is not much of a worry for most people. But it is for older workers--especially those with college educations.

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Appearances are no reliable criteria for defining older workers, since there are young people who look rather “old” and old people exuding “youthfulness.” But generally, if you are 40-plus you are considered an older worker--which probably explains why most people are reluctant to divulge their age unless forced to do so.

As this thinking goes, to be 40 and above means to be “over the hill,” although one may still have at least 15 to 20 years of active working life before calling it a day at 5O or 60.

The profile of an average well-educated ordinary worker in Singapore is that of a male who has worked for the same company for several years, rising to middle-level management.

Alternatively, he has been to university, worked for some time in a menial job before taking on his present position in a “mid-career” capacity.

Either way, he has reached the peak in his career, with hardly any prospects for promotion.

The older ordinary worker has to cling to his job even if he has to stagnate for at least another 15 years.

Many undergo the frustration of seeing younger colleagues who were once junior to them being promoted to senior positions, which means the older workers may have to report to them. All this happens because of a culture which reveres youth and, by implication, disdains age.

The worker here is afraid of losing his job because of extensive family commitments--topmost being the mortgages for a house and car--not to mention children going to school, college or university.

But there is no guarantee that a worker will keep a job until retirement.

The company may just fold up, restructure its operations, or the worker may just be the victim of bad management arising from partisan office politics.

Finding another job which gives the same pay and perks will be like searching for a needle in a haystack.

The most frustrating and humiliating aspect of being jobless is the inherent and pervasive prejudice against older workers imposed by society.

Laments Tan Thian Poh, a man in his 40s who cannot find gainful employment despite his years of experience and qualifications, in a letter to the Straits Times, Singapore’s popular daily:

“Since my last employer, a foreign company, closed its doors here, I have applied for countless jobs, but the only reply I got was that my resume was impressive.”

Tan adds that he does not claim to be a brilliant strategist--a common perquisite companies look for in bright young people--but he has a rich experience and networking, communication and interpersonal skills, intangibles which cannot be acquired from books.

Most professional recruiters and human resource managers he approached hold the view that “a person over 40 is already over the hill, and if he is not holding either a chief executive officer or managing director’s post, then he is not worth employing.”

Tan said most companies prefer to hire someone younger for middle-level management positions, where they can pay less.

In the world of business where the bottom line is profitability, long years of service and loyalty on the part of the older worker mean very little when they are cited as reasons against layoffs.

June, 1994, figures from the Ministry of Labor reveal there were 9,444 laid-off workers, with 51% of them having at least secondary school education.

Where age is concerned, those over 40 also comprise 51% of the 9,444, although they were not necessarily the same 51%.

This may seem like a drop in the bucket, considering that there are 1.69-million workers in Singapore’s total labor force. On that score the plight of the older laid off worker may not be that alarming.

But Leslie Fong, editor of the Straits Times, in a recent column “Spare a Thought for Older, Middle-Rung Employees,” disagrees:

“While some might say that this is not so alarming, I could counter that every [college] educated man or woman over 40 not gainfully or meaningfully employed, is one too many for a Singapore that talks almost incessantly about people being its only resource.”

Singaporeans seem to agree with Fong.

Seow It Sze, who considers himself “no longer young” in a letter to the Straits Times, said “society should overthrow the myth that there is a generation gap, and that the young are at the right end of the gap.” He contends that when “colleagues do not see eye-to-eye, the old are deemed to be at fault.”

Seow said the propensity to worship youth and disdain age should be removed from hiring practices.

“We’re not here to cast a film--we are here for the purpose of making a living,” he said.