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Youth mimic the`freeter' Japanese

Taiwan's "freeters" are a happy species of working-class representing a new employment ecology, but are they happy about their future? Not necessarily.

"Freeter," a term coined by the Japanese by combining the English word "free" and the German word Arbeiter, is defined as "people with college diplomas who engage in menial employment." They seek a free lifestyle and consider leading a carefree life to be more important than their careers.

According to a recent survey in Japan, the number of freeters aged between 15 and 34 there now accounts for about one-fifth of the population in this age group, or roughly 4 million.

In Taiwan, more young men and women are less likely to become freeters through choice, as there are simply fewer jobs for them upon graduation.

"I could not find a work last summer after graduation and could not find any this year either, as the number of my competitors in the job market increased, " said Huang Chang-hui, a teacher at a community after-class center.

Helping grade schoolers with their homework, earning NT$4,800 a month, Huang said she lives with her parents and uses her income as an allowance.

Huang said she is not a happy freeter.

Abon, who runs the Red Potato Studio in Hualien, worked as a freelancer after graduation, writing Haklo-dialect novels and strip cartoons and designing T-shirts.

Although he was happy with his work and free lifestyle, Abon did not fare very well financially. He quit the freelancer career a year and a half later and turned to a regular job as a messenger/driver for a cargo company.

Abon said, however, that he will resume his freeter status when he has saved enough money to live on for one year.

"My key goal is that I realize my ideals when I'm still young," Abon said.

Japanese socio-economists have warned that freeters are a hidden worry in Japanese society as they will have difficulty finding a decent job when they pass 30 and become a burden on Japanese society when they become old and have no savings or relatives to depend on.
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