Japanese Twitter users debate – Is it actually more work being a NEET?

Is spending your days at home more taxing than working a job? Japanese Twitter users share their busy schedules.

In Japan, being unemployed is generally looked down upon. Not having a job is often correlated with laziness and having no ambition. Having a job can be beneficial socially and financially, but it seems that not everyone wants to work. A tweet from a Japanese Twitter user and self-proclaimed NEET has gained attention for his realization on life, labor and time. “You think NEETs have a lot of free time, don’t you? Not really. A day goes by so fast if you eat, take a bath, do laundry, clean the house, do muscle training, tweet, and watch Youtube. In other words, work is abnormal.”

The term NEET is an acronym for “Not in Employment, Education, or Training” and refers to individuals usually between the ages of 15-35, who have decided not to participate in the aforementioned activities by choice. Those who decide to live the NEET life are a relatively small group, as according to a 2018 Ministry of Health Labour and Welfare of Japan survey, Japan had the lowest youth unemployment rate at 2.4%. Instead of working all day, many of these individuals make the most of their days enjoying their hobbies and spending time at home.

It is true that Japan’s work culture has earned a bad reputation over the years for its hard working conditions. According to BizHits, in a survey of a thousand participants who felt like they wanted to quit their jobs, “having bad relations with other employees (20.6%), unfair treatment and reprimanding (18.8%), too much overtime and not enough time to rest (13.1%)” were among the top 3 out of ten reasons.

Other serious problems, like cases of employees being worked to death (karoshi), have also been recorded, with employees experiencing depression, epileptic seizures, heart attacks and more due to stress from work. According to the Ministry of Health Labour and Welfare survey, last year alone there were over 3,486 cases of death from overwork, an increase of 387 cases from the previous year.

Many users agreed that too much of their time is being spent on performing labor and not enough relaxing and enjoying life. As one user states “A NEET who consumes 100% of his time for his own life is a full human being!”

It seems that even many users with jobs agree that working kind of sucks, and wouldn’t mind following the NEET way of life if they weren’t bound by financial circumstances. One working user tweets “I want to live like that, but I have to make an income.” Additionally, another user questioned how the OP could manage to afford his lifestyle tweeting “Working too much might be abnormal, but watching YouTube, using Twitter, smartphones, eating rice, washing clothes, taking a bath, vacuuming, etc. are things that can be done because someone is working to make money in the first place, right?”

Having to work a job can be stressful, however in recent years, more companies in Japan have been working to improve conditions for their employees. According to Human Resocia Corporation, a popular job recruiting company, many Japanese businesses are starting to rethink the way in which they work. Giving employees the option of flextime and some companies going as far as “offering minor incentives to employees who would leave the office earlier” to cut down on the amount of overtime employees work. Additionally, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, an increase in remote work opportunities have been created across Japan, allowing many employees to work outside the office, reducing pressure to remain working late hours.

It seems in general, no matter if users were for or against the idea of a life without labor, one thing that everyone could agree on was that having to work a job in order to make a living kind of sucks. With the long hours leaving little time to pursue personal interests for many workers it’s not hard to see why the NEET life attracts those who want to prioritize their personal lives. The number of workers in Japan who have both ample personal time and the ability to make a living may become more common as working conditions continue to improve.