A new generation of S’poreans says unemployment can be fun

SINGAPORE – Like most of his cohort, 26-year-old Jonathan Chan starts his weekdays early. But while his peers bolt to the office with sleep still dusting their eyes, Mr Chan can luxuriate in bed for two, sometimes three, hours.

The

former Olympic diver

is unemployed, and has been for five months. He is vocal about it, too. In a video shared with his 9,000 Instagram followers, he documents a day in his life sans job.

It shows an enviable schedule: wake up, laze, F45 (a high-intensity workout class), toy with spray paint, dinner with friends, capped off with a night at the theatre. 

Mr Chan’s video is just one in a rapidly growing canon. Hundreds of such videos of young people who have quit their jobs can be found on TikTok and Instagram, depicting what has become known as “funemployment” – a period of fun unemployment.

On TikTok, videos with the hashtag #unemploymentlife have been viewed at least 25.8 million times. The bulk of such content comes from the US and Britain, but the trend has also caught on in Singapore. 

Such videos first appeared on TikTok in 2020, when

pandemic-induced layoffs and hiring freezes

put many Generation Zs – people born between 1997 and 2012 – out of a job.

In the beginning, they featured troubled job seekers making the best of a bad situation, but a growing number now star young people who have willingly quit their jobs – some barely a year into the workforce. 

Mr Chan left his first job as a fabricator in May after 10 months at the company because he knew he wanted to be a designer instead. 

“It wasn’t what I wanted to do long term and the company was small. There wasn’t much progression,” he said.

He told The Straits Times he does not feel guilty about “taking a break”, having trained almost daily for a decade to

qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics

. This is the most rest he has enjoyed since he was a boy, he said.

“It’s amazing. Every day is different and my life is so spontaneous now,” he said. “I’ll find a job again, just not now.”

Mr Chan is part of a new generation that views joblessness less as a stigma than as a protest against overwork, dreary work and hypercapitalism. 

Mr Zachary Tan, 26, left his job at a marketing agency after five years in search of something more fulfilling. “I’m taking time to figure out what will make me happy in the long run – a job that doesn’t feel like a job.”

He started his unemployment-themed TikTok account after leaving his job in August, and his first video went viral, attracting almost 220,000 views.

“That’s when I realised that a lot of people are actually facing what I’m facing,” he said.

Career services experts say the rise in early career breaks among Gen Zs shows how the plum takings possible from gig work and content creation have put paid to traditional notions of work.

“Young people are not afraid to quit without a job waiting these days because there are so many ways for them to monetise their skills,” said Mr Vivek Iyyani, founder of Millennial Minds, an organisation that helps companies recruit and retain young talent.

“Anything that can go on the Internet and be offered as a service can keep them afloat,” said Mr Iyyani. 

For instance, Mr Tan’s online presence – he has about 2,000 followers – has earned him freelance marketing assignments that are tiding him over his break.

“Doing freelance, I’m equally or even more busy now,” he added. “But I have freedom, the ownership of my time.”

As for content creator Kerstin Ong, she left her job in June partly to see if she could support herself as a full-time influencer.

“Honestly, you can earn more as an influencer than in a normal job,” said Ms Ong, 26, who boasts some 40,000 followers on Instagram and 60,000 followers on TikTok.

Ms Ong saw her following swell by 10,000 during her funemployment stint, which she chronicled in a six-part series on TikTok. 

In one video, Ms Ong stitched clips from her time at work – constantly hunched over a glowing screen, crying and thinking of “ending it all” – with footage from her unemployed life, where she is exercising, shopping and beaming.

Even so, she confessed that she has since returned to a full-time role in marketing after being headhunted with an “irresistible offer”. 

“I still think about influencing all the time. Maybe next time,” she said.

Mr Chan also supports himself through freelance gigs as an artist and diving coach.

But the young people ST interviewed also said not everyone can afford to take a break from work. They could do so because they had savings and were in a phase of life with few responsibilities.

Nanyang Business School’s director of career services Linda Ong, who has worked closely with fresh graduates for almost 20 years, said: “Young people are still pragmatic, but the opportunities offered are vastly different from even five years ago.”

Priorities have shifted too. Said Mr Iyyani: “They grew up with a higher quality of life, so they prioritise things like meaningful work, mental well-being and doing the things they love.”

Still, funemployment is not all bliss, and the funemployed have to contend with perceptions from others that they are unambitious or anti-work, and anxiety that they might fall behind their peers.

Mr Chan admitted that he gets anxious about his future in quiet moments.

“But I am more resilient than most. I remind myself that life is about give and take,” he said.

“I also gave myself a deadline. I’m getting a job next year.”

Mr Iyyani said the funemployed must be prepared to face some judgment from their elders.

“The older generation will find it hard to imagine enjoying being unemployed without feeling a tinge of guilt and fear,” he said. 

Yet, he cautioned that their expectations may be outmoded. “After all, the world has changed,” he said.