The traditional 9 to 5 job is slowly becoming a relic of the pre-COVID workplace.
Job cuts and lay-offs on a local and global scale has spooked many Australian workers into the gig economy, with job loss anxiety hitting a five-year high in April, according to the Westpac-Melbourne Institute Consumer Sentiment Index.
Natasha Ciesielski was made redundant twice in the span of eight years.
She wants to avoid this occupational hazard again by trialling a career away from the traditional salaried job.
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The Sydney woman was retrenched for the first time from her job at Canon in 2018.
"I did not stop crying for two weeks, I was devastated. It was a real shock to the system," Ciesielski, 47, told Nine.com.au.
"I'd been out of the job market for a really long time, because I've been headhunted from company to company, so it'd been quite a while since I actually had to apply for anything."
It took a few months to find another role.
The former marketing manager and writer adopted a steely resolve once she found herself back in the job market.
Instead of anxiously waiting for the next round of redundancies, she worked on her side passions, which included writing, studying wine (oenology) and teaching yoga.
"I thought... I'm never putting myself in that position again, in terms not having something else to lean on and putting all my love and my time into my career," she said.
"I was very much a 'career came first' person.
"But I wanted to do it differently."
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The tap on the shoulder came again earlier this month.
When Ciesielski was made redundant from her senior marking job at American Express, this time, she wasn't as devastated.
She had a casual yoga teaching job and had started her own theatre review website, Bacchus at the Theatre.
Though it was unpredictable, Ciesielski still had some money to fall back on.
"I might only earn $60 a month, or I might earn $300 a month," she said.
"But I'm still getting an income from somewhere else.
"Mentally... it helped me feel like I had something else."
Ciesielski learned during her first redundancy that there's no shame in asking for help or support.
She immediately took stock of her bills, contacted her internet provider and negotiated a reduced payment fee.
She also cancelled unnecessary subscriptions like Spotify and spoke to her friends about ways to socialise without spending money.
"I've set things up for myself. I've approached it differently," she said.
"Being older, I have a lot of friends who aren't working too.
"Honestly, it just seems so common, I've had so many friends recently that have been made redundant."
While recovering from the second redundancy blow, Ciesielski realised she had no desire to jump back into a 9 to 5 job.
If the "dream job" arises, she will take it. But there's no sense of urgency.
"It's more about crafting my dream life, to be honest," Ciesielski added.
"My plan moving forward is to do project and contract work.
"I am loving the time to focus on my interests. I don't want to return to a nine to five at the moment."
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'Reframing' your career
Around 268,000 Australians were retrenched in 2025, the highest number since the COVID-19 pandemic ended, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
For many of these workers who have been made redundant, financial pressures like a mortgage or raising children might mean gig work is out of the question.
Chief executive of Dynamic Leadership Programs Australia (DLPA) and Crestcom ANZ Karlie Cremin said job seekers should be open about the type of work they can secure.
"That might mean taking the 'good enough' role for a little bit, because there's very real pressures in business and in the world at the moment that mean sthat good enough might be the best thing on the table for a while," Cremin said.
Cremin shares Ciesielski's ethos of separating your job from your identity.
She advocates her clients to "reflect on and reframe" on what having a career means.
"It can be just a devastating thing and I think the best thing that people can do is kind of take that as a prompt," Cremin said.
"Take the time to reflect on, well, my work is what I do, but it's not who I am – even if it's really, really important to me."
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