FREETER JAPAN FREE

Some Reasons Young People Become FreetersĪ part of the reason more freeters are increasing in numbers is their desire for more free time and flexibility, which is often difficult to obtain while working as a regular employee (正社員, sei shain) in a fulltime salary job. Many workers who became freeters for whichever reason, now find themselves stuck because they cannot acquire specific job skills needed to work a salary-paid job. The term is usually used to describe young people, different from those who return to part-time work after marriage or retirement.Īccording to The Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training, most freeters can be categorized into four categories:ġ) the “moratorium type” who are temporarily working before starting a careerĢ) the “dream pursuit type” who need the freedom of a part-time to work on their dreams such as becoming a musicianģ) the “no alternative type” who have no other options or opportunities or who missed the job hunting window after graduating from collegeĤ) the recently added “step-up type” who become freeters to complete study or training for the jobs they aspire to have Freeters are included within the employment category of “part” (パート) and “arubaito.” Age and circumstances discern whether the employee is called a “freeter” or not. Furita, a Japanese word that first came into use in 1987, is a combination of the English word “free” and the German word “ arbeiter,” meaning “laborer.” The word arbeiter” already exists as “ arubaito” (アルバイト) in Japanese to describe part-time or side jobs.

The term generally includes men working continuously for less than 1-5 years and unmarried women working for a living. What Does “Freeter” Mean?įreeters or Furita (フリーター) is a term used to define young people (between the ages of 15 and 34) in short or part-time employment instead of professional, salaried long-term careers. But while teaching high school students at night school, Professor Slater discovered that not everyone in Japan shared equally in this national wealth many were struggling even then and did not have such an idealistic image of Japan.Are Furita a Problem in Japan. At that time, Japan was economically booming and was a model of modern success for the world. In recent years, students have taken the next step and have started to become politically active, and I believe they have the power to transform the future.” Professor Slater came to Japan after graduating from col-lege in 1983. I felt it was my responsibility, as a professor, to make students think about how they are con-tributing to society. “After the Great Earthquake of March 11 2011, I began encouraging students to pursue ‘service learn-ing,’ which in my case is a combination of volunteer work and ethnographic fieldwork. As he continues his research, he Professor Slater has been observing young Japanese people for almost 30 years, and is amazed by the recent transforma-tion among students. The precariousness of the freeter lifestyle is now being taken for granted as an unavoid-able fact of life by a whole generation of young people, and Professor Slater thinks that Japan is sacrificing its future by failing to invest in its youth. As Professor Slater’s investigations over the decades reveal, the concept of lifetime employment or even just a full-time steady job has become eroded. Being a freeter was actually rarely a real choice for many young people but instead was an unavoidable outcome-even for those who had attended highly respected schools-as Japan struggled through an economic downturn. Their stories at first conveyed an image of “liberation from the oppressive lifetime employment system of Japan Inc.” But this image hid another reality, one that has become more obvious over time.

As an anthropologist, Professor Slater was fascinated by the development, which led him to gather the real voices of freeters over the years. Around that time that the word “freeter” was becoming popu-lar in Japan to describe a permanent part-time worker, one who chooses to take a succession of part-time jobs rather than a steady full-time job.

Freeter japan