Getting "java.lang.NullPointerException" error on Eclipse for a Java Program

Question

I am writing a program to connect my Oracle database with Java on Eclipse. I keep getting the error mentioned above. I've tried so many thing but nothing worked. any help would be appreciated.

This is the error that I am getting:

ava.lang.NullPointerException

at learning.ConnectionClass.getEmployee(ConnectionClass.java:32)

at learning.Driver.main(Driver.java:10)

Here is my code:

import java.sql.*;
import java.sql.Connection;

import javax.swing.JOptionPane;

public class ConnectionClass {

    private static Connection conn;

    public static Connection dbconnect()
    {
        try {

            Class.forName("oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver");

            conn = DriverManager.getConnection(
                    "jdbc:oracle:thin:@localhost:1521:orcl", "hr", "hr");
            System.out.println("Connection established");
            return conn;

        }catch (Exception e) {
        JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, e);
        return null;
        }
    }

    public static Person getEmployee(String input)
    {
        try {

            PreparedStatement pst = conn.prepareStatement("Select * from person where First_Name =?");
            pst.setString(1, input);

            ResultSet rs = pst.executeQuery();

            Person per = null;

            if(rs.next()) {
                String cnic = rs.getString("CNIC_no");
                String First_Name = rs.getString("First_Name");
                String Last_Name = rs.getString("Last_Name");
                String Gender = rs.getString("Gender");
                String Contact_no = rs.getString("Contact_no");
                int Age = rs.getInt("Age");
                String Contact_id = rs.getString("Contact_id");

                per = new Person(cnic, First_Name, Last_Name, Gender, Contact_no, Age, Contact_id );
            }

            return per;

        }catch(Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
            return null;
        }
    }

}