School of Hard Knocks

New college graduates brace for an uncertain future as Japan's economy sags

TOKYO – April is the start of the new business year in Japan. Traditionally, it’s also the time of year for new university graduates around the country to embark on their careers.

The Class of 2002 is making the transition during one of the darkest periods in Japan’s post-war history. Over the past decade, Japan’s economy has slumped from one of the world’s strongest into a recession-wracked mess. Stubborn deflation and a struggling financial system are two critical domestic problems. Abroad, China is quickly becoming a power to be reckoned with. Summing up the mood during President George W. Bush’s February visit, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said, “Japan has lost confidence in itself.”

When asked for their opinion about the economy, college kids here are typically fairly blasé at first. But keep asking, and most admit that it’s darn hard to feel optimistic.

“I do feel very anxious,” says 22-year-old Hiroyuki Kamikawa, who graduated from International Christian University, a leading liberal arts school, last month. “The thought that Japan could just keep getting worse is worrisome.”

For many young Japanese, the problems facing the economy at large become uncomfortably personal when they try to find full-time jobs.

“Things are tough!” Hiromi Gozu says with a wince. The 23-year-old just got her degree from Tokyo’s prestigious Waseda University.

As is the norm here, Gozu began looking for work during her junior year. It took nearly nine months to land an offer, longer than she had anticipated. Gozu had hoped to work for a fashion firm, but openings were so scarce that she gave up and settled on a job in real estate. “Because of the economy, businesses are hiring very few people,” she says.

Time was, graduating from a top Japanese college was a virtual ticket to a job with a major company or the government. For decades, Japanese parents lectured their children that studying hard and getting into a good school were the keys to a solid career. But in today’s Japan, no one is taking such things for granted. And just getting a job is no longer a guarantee of secure employment. As a result, people like Wataru Kikuchi, 22, are leaving school with their eyes wide open.

“My way of looking at it is that anything can happen in the future, like my company could go bankrupt – maybe tomorrow. My philosophy is that I have to be ready for anything,” he says. Meanwhile, the tradition of jumping from college directly into a full-time job is slowly eroding, partly out of rebellion against Japan’s hierarchical corporate system and partly because competition is so stiff.

Surveys by Disco Inc., a leading recruiting firm, find while the overwhelming majority of college seniors want full-time jobs after graduation, nearly 20 percent say that they would consider another route. “Students’ approach to work is becoming diverse,” says Fusako Takei of Disco’s research division.

“I’ve been a career counselor for 10 years,” says Yuka Saiki, who is also a columnist, lecturer and the author of books for job seekers. “In the last one to two years, there has been an increase in the number of seniors who go to graduate school, stay in college an extra year, or who think they don’t need to bother to try to find full-time work,” she says.

It’s the last category of young adults that face the most precarious future, especially those who become freeters. The term, a combination of the word free and the German word arbeiter, or worker, refers to young people who juggle part-time jobs to make a living.

A government survey in 1997 estimated that there were 1.5 million freeters. Some people believe the figure is now around 2 million.

While the freewheeling lifestyle has a romantic appeal, students and career experts alike agree that freeters risk getting trapped in a lifetime of low-paying, dead-end jobs with no benefits. “It’s almost impossible” for part-timers to transition to a regular career with a company, Saiki says. That helps to explain why Masatoshi Watanabe, now a junior at Meiji University, is so determined to succeed in his job search. “I have to try my absolute hardest to find work,” he says.

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