Redundancy at 45: How to Navigate a Mid-Career Shock

Divide wealth into safety, stability, and aspirations to protect against mid-life shocks

- TARUN BIRANI

At 45, life often feels settled: a steady corporate role, a family of four, home loan inching towards closure, and investments compounding quietly in the background. For one mid-level executive earning a ₹50-lakh annual package, it looked assured. About 70% of his net worth was tied up in real estate—split between his family home and a second property on EMI. The rest sat in employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) holdings. He believed he had built resilience, until redundancy struck.

India's biggest IT layoff

In July, one of India's largest IT firms announced over 12,000 layoffs—around 2% of its global workforce—citing skill mismatches rather than AI as the cause. Mid- and senior-level employees bore the brunt. It was the country's largest-ever IT layoff, with ripple effects across the sector. Globally too, tech companies are struggling with cuts.

For our executive, the assumption of continuity until sixty collapsed overnight. Along with income, he lost the most precious resource in retirement planning: time. Mid-career redundancy is not just a financial shock; it is a career breakpoint. The decade from 45 to 55 is when professionals typically earn peak income, build surpluses, and lay retirement foundations. A disruption here compresses compounding and threatens critical goals: children's higher education, home loan closure, and a dependable retirement corpus.