Now that its August and several months behind me, I can say I understand why it was a required step in the path to a PhD in the Sociology Department at the University of Hawaii. It was a truly brutal five months of study to prepare for the week-long writing marathon and two hour oral defense, but now its done. I officially passed my PhD Comprehensive exams on Friday, May 8th! Many of these 30-something freeters want to start families or be bread-winners, but lack the job stability to settle down into family roles with any confidence. Collectively, this marginalized population of Freeters and NEET are rapidly becoming Japan's new working class with no viable path to a mainstream middle class career. Freeters and NEET are basically the same group of Japanese workers either in contract employment (and show up in data as freeter) or unemployed after a stint working (and are classified in labor data as NEET). This is why there is a growing population of aged 30+ freeters (contract workers) in the Japanese work force. You are relegated to a precarious working class existence in society with little job stability.
FREETER JAPAN FULL
So re-skilling and adult education in Japan means, even if you can get hired into a middle class labor position, most likely you will be a contract worker with no real chance to become a full time employee at the "big" corporations the rest of your working life.
However, that on-the-job work-experience by contract hires is not considered valid on a job application by Japanese corporations. The remainder of their work force are 'outside hires', contract workers: freeters.Ĭontract workers may have gone back to school as an adult or have worked for several years learning the same skills in the industry as regular hires. However, unlike globalized corporations in other countries, many big Japanese companies still prefer to hire fresh 20-something college graduates as their regular employees with full benefits. In Japan, globalization has caused many companies to downsize and resort to a contract-for-hire work force they can jettison at any time to stay profitable. Some stigma may still hold for those trying for employment in the most elite of corporations, however. The ability to go back to school and get a college degree/re-skill as an adult and be accepted into the labor force within a new career is a viable option in many globalized labor markets. With globalization, options for adult re-education and re-skilling has become a common strategy in other nations in the labor market. Once you take an exit from the college track, there is no way to get back on the road. If forced to use sound bite imagery, I would prefer to think of the educational track in a Japan as a highway with too few off-ramps into adult life. I was telling the reporter this is how other people portray Japanese education, its not my viewpoint. Personally, I dislike the usage of "pressure cooker" applied to the Japanese school system. Its a shame he had to shorten the length, but I think he did the best he could with the space he was given. It was my understanding at the time of the interview that the piece was to be longer and in the main publication. Its a good article and appears to be well researched. Hanging out with Japan's 'lost generation' - CBC NEWS What he finally put to print is somewhat out of context and not the gist of what I was trying to tell him, but what's in print is done. I even said several times what I was stating was not my opinion but what others had said or how it was generally perceived. I tried to give him a broad picture of the issue and how it was portrayed in the media. The reporter and I sat for about an hour in the Shibuya Starbucks chatting about shut-ins in Japan. Back in 2010, I was interviewed about my previous research on hikikomori.
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