As someone in my early-towards-mid 40s, is it really hard to stay employed? I get that lots of folks are into consulting at this age or other versions of self-e

As someone in my early-towards-mid 40s, is it really hard to stay employed? I get that lots of folks are into consulting at this age or other versions of self-employed, but as a guy who got into this field fairly late, I'm concerned that I'm going to end up 50 and jobless which will really mess with my retirement plans.