A Japanese human resource consultancy in Jakarta says that more and more Japanese youth are seeking jobs outside of Japan, amidst the tough economy and even tougher employment market. Developing countries like Indonesia are quick to take advantage of that.
Miki Hotta, 26, currently works in Jakarta as a reporter for a local Japanese-language newspaper after failing to land a job in Japan with any of the firms she contacted. Amid the severe employment conditions and economic stagnation companies were cutting the number of jobs for new graduates, with some even taking back their promises of employment to students. Hotta started job hunting in September 2008 as a Nagoya college junior, and sent employment applications to about 100 companies, ranging from food makers to apparel trading houses. None of them offered her a position.
A professor then advised her to apply for a job with the Daily Jakarta Shimbun, a Japanese language newspaper in Indonesia. She landed the job after interviewing in Tokyo and began working for the Jakarta daily in April 2010, covering fashion and consumption-related issues. The paper was launched after the authoritarian Suharto regime toppled over in 1998 and now prints 5,000 copies daily. The newspaper hires about three to four people every year, mostly new graduates, according to Taro Ueno, the chief editor.
Hotta said that her work in Jakarta fulfills her. “There is a sense of excitement (in Indonesia) that we are going to have some fun,” she said. She returns about once a year to Japan, where, she said, “I feel it is full of gloomy news and people don’t smile much.”
[via Kyodo]