VANCOUVER — Cynthia Pincombe, 61, got her first job in retail about three years ago.

She has a pension from 30 years as a registered nurse, but needed a little more for extras, so she applied for a job at Sears.

“My job was you name it: pricing things, rearranging the warehouse, bringing stuff into the store,” Pincombe said. When her mother became ill, Pincombe spent her savings to look after her. Life happens, Pincombe said.

Nearly one in five Canadian workers expect they will never be able to fully retire.

Compared to workers in a broad cross-section of 15 industrialized nations, Canadians are among the worst off.

Seventeen per cent of Canadian workers expect they’ll always have to work. This compares to the global figure of 12 per cent, according to The Future of Retirement: Life after Work, a large HSBC survey of people in Canada, Australia, France, Hong Kong, India and Mexico, among other countries. Canada rated just above the U.K. (19 per cent) and the U.S. (18 per cent). Meanwhile in Vancouver, the YWCA is getting 40 applicants for every 12 spots in a new program designed for men and women over 55 who want to get back into the workforce.

The average age of participants is, shockingly, 62.

“We’ve had people that haven’t been able to pay their rent or are living at a relative’s or a friend’s couch,” YWCA career adviser Lynda McFee said. “There’s such a need out there with mature workers.”

Job Options Older Workers Program participants may have retired a few years ago but found they are going through their pensions too fast, McFee said. Others are not yet collecting their Canada Pension Plan and are desperate for income. Many have had health issues or stopped work to care for aging parents and now face job hunting not only as a senior, but with a gap in employment. Many are single.

Monica Garcia, 55, stopped work two years ago to look after her mother and her husband, who has had two hip replacements and walks for only 10 minutes at a time.

Garcia found herself trying to re-enter the workforce when she had expected to be exiting. But no one was responding to the former car salesperson’s job applications. At the Y’s new program, Garcia learned how to convince recruiters she’s suitable for a minimum wage job.

“You have to tell them, ‘Yes I have all this experience, but this is what I want to do at this moment in my life,’ and convince the person you can work for $10.50,” Garcia said.

She also learned how to convince herself.

“The kind of work you do is not saying who you are,” she said. “The job is one step to where you want to get to in your life, but you need to take that step to pay your rent. You have to accept what you’re doing, pay your bills and keep going.”

The program helped Garcia — who lives rent-free as a Vancouver park caretaker — to secure a short-term job doing in-store product demonstrations at Costco. But she continues to worry about the future.