Jiangxi atb    @Cybertan    

SINGAPORE – In a March 3 Instagram post, Cherlyn Lim faces the camera, her expression despondent. “I’m 40 and I’m honestly freaking out,” she says, adding that she was terminated from her job in technology sales in November 2025 via a three-minute phone call. “I’ve been job hunting for four months. Nothing. No offers, no callbacks, just silence.” Edgar Tang started his new Instagram account, @edgarafter50, with this revelation on May 13: “So I recently got laid off from my tech job and I’m 50 years old.” His parents did not know he had lost his job, he adds later in the reel. While it is not uncommon to see Gen Z workers sharing the ups and downs of their working life online, workers over 40 like Lim and Tang are also laying bare their feelings on social media after losing their jobs through retrenchment or termination. In these videos on public accounts, they capture the raw emotion of being stripped of something vital to their identity, at an age when many of their peers are at the peak of their careers. Their vulnerability has struck a chord as retrenchment news becomes commonplace, with companies such as Meta, Lazada, Gardenia Foods Singapore and H&M and even statutory board Government Technology Agency cutting staff in 2026. The Ministry of Manpower’s figures show that 4,500 workers were retrenched in the second quarter of 2026. This is the highest quarterly figure since the last quarter of 2020. Lim’s post on @cheryummm has garnered more than 15,800 likes and over 2,285 comments, while Tang’s post has more than 1,305 comments. Many people sent messages of encouragement or recounted their own stories of being let go from their jobs. Lim says she created the account, which has more than 10,000 followers, to say everything she could not say out loud to the people around her. “I wanted to be a real person talking honestly about a really difficult season of life, instead of pretending everything was okay,” she says. It is the first time the business graduate from Murdoch University in Australia, who has worked in the tech industry for almost a decade, has lost a job. Cherlyn Lim said she created an Instagram account after she was laid off to talk about a difficult season of life, instead of pretending everything was okay. PHOTO: SCREENGRAB FROM CHERYUMMM/INSTAGRAM She says she did not expect anyone to watch her videos and was surprised at the response, especially from strangers who thought they were the only ones feeling this way. “That made me realise how silent job loss can be, especially when you’re in your 40s. “On social media, most people show only their promotions and wins. Very few people show what happens when everything falls apart,” she adds. At 40, the singleton told The Straits Times she does not have the luxury of taking time to figure things out as she has bills to pay. “There’s also this feeling that time is against you. You start wondering whether companies still see your experience as valuable, or if they’ll choose someone younger instead. That’s probably been the hardest part,” she says. In a post on July 22, she said she had stopped looking for the right job after sending out 47 job applications and not making it past the final round of interviews. She has since gone to Guangzhou, China, to explore starting her own clothing brand. Flipping the script Tang, who was a video editor and creative at a major entertainment streaming service, had been mulling over content creation before his layoff gave him the nudge he needed. Friends told him that his lived experience – including being diagnosed with Stage 3 Hodgkin’s lymphoma at 32, falling into depression at 36, and being a caregiver to his parents since his late 30s – could help others. The responses to his first video in May were “extraordinary” and he attracted 5,000 followers in less than a week. “The comments were encouraging, grateful and personal. It created what I call a virtuous circle: me paying it forward and receiving validation at the same time during one of the most vulnerable periods of my life,” says Tang, who is now a full-time content creator with more than 18,600 followers. That the bachelor made his age part of his account identity is deliberate. “Many people over 50 feel their age makes them invisible. I wanted to flip that. Make it the headline, not the footnote,” says Tang, who has a Master of Arts degree in digital management from Teesside University in England and over two decades of experience in video storytelling. “I’m a late bloomer. I earned my degree at 44, started exercising at 45, and began this creator journey at 50. If I can do this, truly anyone can. It’s never too late to start.” The message behind @edgarafter50 is to embrace change with abundance rather than fear, he adds. Meanwhile, Kajeeporn Techataveekijkul, 42, a Thai national who has called Singapore home for a decade, had been posting about her dating life on several social media platforms using the handle @bowiehoneybaby. Better known by her nickname Bow, she pivoted to work content on March 26, with an emotionally laden post that elicited 570 comments. It was the day after she had lost her job handling creator partnerships for a global technology company. “The most heartfelt comments came from people who had been laid off years ago and still carried the shame of it,” says the Master of Arts graduate in international relations and affairs from Waseda University in Tokyo. She has managed creator partnerships, content strategy and community across the Asia-Pacific in various roles. Kajeeporn Techataveekijkul posts on social media practical insights on a sudden career change. PHOTO: COURTESY OF BOW KAJEEPORN TECHATAVEEKIJKUL Over the months, her posts have evolved from expressing shock and processing the identity loss to offering practical insights on coping with a career change. “There is still a lot of shame attached to being laid off, especially at a senior level. The implicit narrative is that if you were good enough, you would have been kept. That narrative is simply not true any more,” she says. Is public sharing a work liability? Kajeeporn’s employment pass was cancelled when she lost her job, and she now shuttles between Singapore and Bangkok while looking for another full-time role, either in Singapore or globally. She says her work-related content has reaped some dividends. Generous strangers have reached out to refer her for jobs, and friends have reconnected and put her name forward in their workplaces. “I think what happens is that when people follow your journey honestly, they feel invested in your outcome. They want to help. That is something I never anticipated when I started posting, that vulnerability would build trust, and trust would translate into people actively opening doors for me,” she reflects. Not all the feedback has been positive, though. Some commenters felt she was damaging her reputation by oversharing. Was she? Angel Kilian, founder of career consultancy Career inFocus, says such posts get high engagement because many people can relate to the emotional process of getting laid off. It also provides a form of validation to others who have kept silent because of social norms. But how might prospective hirers view such posts? Kilian says content matters more than age when it comes to how employers might perceive such candidates. “A post framed as ‘Here’s what I learnt, and here’s what I’m looking for next’ reads as someone sharing their journey, being clear on what they want next. On LinkedIn especially, depending on how it’s phrased, it can even function as a networking tool that boosts visibility,” she says. “On the contrary, a post written from a place of grief or anger with no constructive motive is where one might experience backlash.” Older workers are also held to a higher standard as to how they express their raw emotion, as there is an unconscious age-centric bias that someone at that career stage should have more composure and control, Kilian adds. Hence, she advises workers to be mindful of the social media platforms they use. For instance, emoting on Instagram reels, which reach a broader, more casual audience, may be acceptable, but this carries a higher professional risk on LinkedIn, which is still seen as a more traditional, professional space for careerists. “A useful gut check before posting, for someone who intends to get back into corporate, could be: Would I be comfortable with a future hiring manager watching this? That helps make sure the tone matches how you actually want to be perceived,” she advises. “I’ve seen laid-off candidates land more senior and better roles elsewhere because of their content, and others who’ve struggled to move back into corporate roles for the same reason.” Those who vent online may also risk breaching contractual obligations of confidentiality and duty of care they still owe to their former companies, says Shulin Lee, chief executive officer of Aslant Legal, a legal recruitment firm. While they may not name the company, it is easy enough to find that out by searching on Google or LinkedIn. The firm may take legal action if what the former employee says is defamatory. “Most companies have strict media policies. For people to be considered for senior positions and/or promotion opportunities, they need to be mindful that folks at the C-level are looking at them to see what signal their social media activity is sending,” says Lee, who herself posts regularly on LinkedIn and Instagram. She adds: “My advice for anyone who’s been retrenched is to see a therapist, work with a qualified coach and/or get counselling. It’s a very traumatic event and sometimes, people end up making bad decisions and overshare on social media as an outlet. Don’t do anything that doesn’t serve your future self, your career and your family.” But Kajeeporn says she will continue posting as she feels conversations around layoffs need to change and people value honesty online. “Being let go is not a character flaw. It is an increasingly common feature of a volatile global economy. The more people speak openly about it, the faster we can dissolve the stigma and replace it with something more useful: community, practical support and honest conversation about what it actually takes to navigate a career in 2026.”

sg like no real rpomo