Sister – the job market
When my sister finished school, it was the mid-’90s. The Japanese economy had been declining. Companies went through lay-offs at an unprecedented level in the post-war economic growth period. Lifetime employment, once a norm, became a myth. New graduates, once diamonds, turned into stones.
The number of new graduates was ample. The sons and daughters of post-war babyboomers were graduating, blindly led to believe in their high bargaining power in the job market. Their older brothers and sisters who graduated earlier had flaunted the glamour of being new graduates. They had cars, traveled abroad, bought designer brand bags, played tennis, skied, surfed, sailed, and partied hard.