Mid-career and jobless, willing to take a pay cut, yet blocked by an age barrier in the job hunt

Out of work for months, willing to step down a rung and halve his pay, a Hong Konger in his early forties still has no job offer. Many job-seekers report that, in middle age, even after voluntarily cutting their salary expectations sharply from the tens-of-thousands range, an employer's line about admiring their ability while hiring a more junior candidate is enough to shut the interview door.

Caught in a double squeeze, with blue-collar roles facing imported labour and white-collar tasks gradually replaced by automation tools, career-changers over forty find it hard both to return to their former pay level and to convince employers they are genuinely willing to settle for less, with age becoming an unspoken screening hurdle. Job-hunting strategies, salary repositioning and reskilling support designed specifically for mid-career change remain scattered, leaving this group, who still have more than twenty years of working life ahead, stuck between aiming too high and settling too low.