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`Job-hoppers' want part-time life

DPA, TOKYO
Friday, Jun 02, 2006, Page 9

Hirefumi Yasuda vowed never to lead the same life as his father and so many other Japanese.

"I rejected it -- to have to throw myself into a business suit every morning and join the masses of other corporate employees scrambling for overcrowded commuter trains," the 26-year-old says.

"You just have to look at them to see how exhausted they all are," he says.

Instead, he moved to the countryside after graduating from high school and found part-time work as a farmhand with various farmers.

When the fields lay idle and there wasn't much to do, he returned to his parents in Tokyo and made a meager living with odd jobs in fast-food restaurants among others.

For five years, he earned his living as a "freeter," a hybrid word derived from the English expression "free" and the German word arbeiter (worker).

This title is bestowed on an increasing number of young people in Japan, the second-largest economy in the world, who have chosen to veer from the traditional career path and not follow the ideal of life-long employment in a corporation, instead jumping from one part-time job to the next.

"I just wanted to do something that I had never done before. I simply tried out farm work and I enjoyed it very much," Yasuda explains.

Not only farmers appreciate Yasuda's choice, but the government, too.

As Japanese society ages, the farming sector has been stricken by a shortage of young farm workers, according to Kenichi Tanaka in the Ministry of Agriculture in Tokyo.

But a new government campaign, designed to encourage 12,000 young people annually to take regular employment in agriculture over the next few years, has so far failed to reach its target because Japan's birth rate has been dwindling steadily.

However, there are an estimated 2 million "freeters" and yet another 640,000 so-called "neets" (not in education, employment or training) -- young people who want neither regular employment nor to continue their education.

By trying to interest these young people in regular employment in farming, the government hopes to solve two problems simultaneously as government officials, educators and the media have identified the increasing numbers of "freeters" and "neets" as "serious problems."

Experts have warned that the rising numbers of young people without solid education might erode the country's international competitiveness.

Apart from that, the increase in low-paying odd jobs might accelerate the trend among the Japanese to wed even later or to remain single for good, a development that may exacerbate the country's already dwindling birth rate.

A recent survey conducted by Tokyo's Toyo University among 2,800 college freshmen and 1,500 parents found that 40 percent of students considered it acceptable to become "freeters," if that was "necessary to realize dreams."

On the other hand, 47 percent of parents said their children "under no circumstances" should be earning their living with odd part-time jobs.

Nevertheless, there are indeed some "freeters" who would enjoy working as corporate employees, Yasuda says.

But they have to cope with a generally bad image and their chances of securing proper jobs with regular companies are, therefore, greatly diminished, he says.

However, there have been media reports about companies currently facing severe workforce shortages due to Japan's rebounding economy and would be eager to employ "neets."

Yasuda himself has meanwhile found regular employment with a charitable organization in Tokyo, which assists "freeters," "neets" and so-called hikikomori, the latter being an idiom for people who refuse to leave their parental homes, but are shutting themselves out of both family and social life.

One of the organization's objectives is to give young people the opportunity to enjoy work by letting them gain work experience in the farming sector.

A lot of young people in Tokyo are interested in farm work, Yasuda says.

Even he would abandon life in hectic Tokyo in exchange for that of a rural farmer at some stage, he says.

"It is much nicer to walk on earth than on asphalt and I feel relaxed and `cleansed' when working in the fields," Yasuda adds, smiling.
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