Having been a full time housewife for 18 years, Ms. LAI is now a Petrol Station Service Attendant. Since her children had grown up, she decided to re-join the working force and find a full time job.

Being middle-aged and unemployed for a long time, Ms. LAI found that she had difficulties in finding jobs. She then sought the assistance from Job Centre of the Labour Department. She was referred to a small and medium enterprise operating a petrol station and was employed for the above post through joining the “Employment Programme for the Middle-aged”.

Ms. LAI faced difficulties when she started her work in the station. For example, she did not know how to identify different kinds of petrol, how to provide the respective offers to different credit card holders and how to administer safety measures in petrol station. Besides, she also had difficulty to adapt to the harsh outdoor working environment. With the patient coaching from Miss WAI, the Station Supervisor, Ms. LAI could quickly learn the working skills. Miss WAI also modified the uniform to facilitate Ms LAI to adapt to the working environment. Ms. LAI was a friendly and cheerful person. This has enabled her to build up good relationship with customers and colleagues alike. Ms LAI had much zeal in and was very satisfied with her job.

Mr. HO, the General Manager of the petrol station, commended Ms LAI’s active, hard working and responsible working attitude. He realised that the middle-aged employees are well-suited to work in petrol station, and their turnover rate was relatively low. He furthered that the on-the-job training allowance for the employers payable under the “Employment Programme for the Middle-aged” had enriched the training resources of the company. He will definitely recommend this programme to his counterparts in the industry.

Ms FAN, aged 49, was hired as an account clerk by a welding & steel works company through joining the “Employment Programme for the Middle-aged” of the Labour Department. Ms FAN used to be a housewife for years and had some clerical experience before. However, those digital office equipments like scanner or fax machine, or steel works drawings now she had to deal with were all brand new to her.

Ms FAN only had elementary accounting knowledge when she joined the company. She had to seek help from her mentor, i.e. her employer, whenever she had difficulties in doing her job. She might not learn as fast as teenagers, but she always asked for advice until she could solve the problem by herself. In six months’ time, she has already turned into an independent accounting clerk. She was glad to have met a good employer. She met more people in this job and gained confidence.

According to Mr. HO, the employer, it was difficult to hire a stable employee because of his company’s small size and inability to offer attractive terms to candidates with high qualifications. He only wanted an employee who enjoyed working in his company and did not care much about age. Eventually, he hired Ms FAN and appreciated her good working attitude. Ms FAN took some time to adapt to her new job at this age. Yet she worked with great care, and was willing to learn as well. Besides, Mr. HO tried his best to train Ms FAN by himself. He also subsidised Ms FAN to take external training courses with the allowance from the EPM.

Mr. HO considered the EPM very helpful especially to small company of his sort. Small-sized companies may offer limited room for career development for young people, but on the other hand they were suitable for middle-aged persons who needed a stable job to support their families. He will definitely recommend the EPM to other business acquaintances, so that they could benefit from the programme as well.