Career break | Mother grilled on workplace relevance felt 'identity-less'

Many workers take extended employment breaks for reasons like starting and raising a family. While leaving the working world may be easy, it seems that getting back into the corporate cycle is a challenge for many.

A woman returning to work after a 21-year career break was left feeling ‘identity-less’ after she was asked to give evidence of what she had been doing since her previous job – despite taking a break to raise a family.

Mother Debs Brady said that she didn’t receive any benefits and the household bills were in her husband’s name, therefore she had a limited paper trail proving what she had been doing since her last role.

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Brady recalled: “It was a difficult process. I feel like I would have been better off returning to work after coming out of jail than raising a family, as there would at least then be a paper trail.