state pension<\/a>. Instead, he relies on the workplace pension he paid into and a personal one.<\/p>\nWhilst George did not want to disclose how much is in his pot specifically, he said his retirement savings were \u201cnothing to write home about\u201d and were \u201cprobably what the average pension is at the moment\u201d.<\/p>\n
George, who has worked across many different industries throughout his life, including oil and gas, civil engineering, and petrochemical engineering, has not had much luck, though.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cNot only do I feel I have a lot more years left in me to work if given the chance, but I also need to supplement my work\u2019s pension and a personal pension that helps fund and pay my bills.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have applied for a few staff-paid jobs, including for a computer-aided design technician, a mechanical draughtsman and a space planner draughtsman, but I haven\u2019t had any replies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Returning to the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) industry after a career break is \u201charder than ever\u201d, according to STEM Returners, which helps people in this field return to work.<\/p>\n
Bias against gender, age, ethnicity and a lack of recent experience penalise highly qualified people from getting a job, a study it conducted found.<\/p>\n
Three-quarters of respondents said they were finding the return-to-work process difficult or very difficult, which is higher than in 2022, when this was 65 per cent and the country was getting back to normal after the pandemic.<\/p>\n
More than half of respondents \u2013 53 per cent \u2013 said they had experienced bias against a lack of experience, an increase from 51 per cent in last year\u2019s survey, while 41 per cent reported experiencing age bias, up from 36 per cent in 2024.<\/p>\n
One job he even applied for twice, he said, as the company was looking for more staff. Again, he never heard back.<\/p>\n
George continued: \u201cI was shown around and told that I would be able to come in for a test to show and prove my skills. I said yes, but I didn\u2019t hear from them again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the past year, George has done some part-time cleaning work to help boost his income. But he recently gave that up after the shift patterns changed, as it no longer fitted in with caring for his granddaughter.<\/p>\n
Despite his 35 years of experience and enthusiasm, he thinks his age is an \u201cobstacle\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cCompanies are looking for a younger person who will probably stay in the company longer than I might have left to give, but I still have lots of expertise to give and shouldn\u2019t be overlooked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Currently, he is looking for a 12-week retraining and mentoring programme with STEM Returners, which he described as being a \u201cpositive experience\u201d so far which has given him hope.<\/p>\n
He is willing to learn and upskill, he said, and he is concerned about his financial future. His \u201cyears of experience should count for something\u201d, he said, adding that the transferable skills he has built up would \u201cbenefit a company\u201d.<\/p>\n
Natalie Desty, director of STEM Returners, called out the Government for not taking enough steps to help older people get back to work and boost economic activity.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cFurther action really needs to engage industry and employers to create opportunities and remove barriers.<\/p>\n
\u201cSimilar to the returner barriers, we need to focus on removing the systemic barriers that make it difficult for people to contribute, rather than focusing on changing the individual \u2013 it isn\u2019t usually a lack of talented individuals but a lack of equitable opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Neil, 64, has applied for countless jobs but has not heard back from any of them When…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[114,2116,268,85,46,265,12316,266,267,688],"class_list":{"0":"post-332502","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-employment","10":"tag-finance","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-jobs","14":"tag-pensioners","15":"tag-personal-finance","16":"tag-personalfinance","17":"tag-retirement"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}