The perception of switching jobs is changing dramatically among young people, who increasingly view it as positive way to quickly refine their work skills.

Some are encouraged by social media posts to leave their workplaces.

A resident of Tokyo in his mid-20s said he quit his job at a major financial institute where he had worked for two and a half years. He secured a new position at a design firm last fall.

“This is not something negative,” said the young man. “I decided it would be better for me to leave quickly after reconsidering what I wanted to do in the future and what I should do right now.”

When he was first participating in the annual recruitment drive, he was looking for an employer in particular who would assign him to an office outside Japan.

But later, his priorities changed. He started dreaming about making people happy through space design and marketing.

On top of that, he felt anxious about the potential negative impact of his former company’s frequent personnel relocations nationwide, since he wanted to marry someone who had a career of her own.

He did not consider his former company’s promise of lifetime employment to be an important factor.

In his eyes, his supervisor at his former workplace appeared to have failed to do what he really wanted in life--even though the supervisor had gone all out to obtain a managerial position.

The young worker found online influencers on social media who earned more than 10 million yen ($66,000) a year despite not belonging to corporations.

“It looked ridiculous to continue working for decades under a seniority-based promotion system,” recalled the man.

“Improving my skills and abilities to earn more on my own in my 20s seemed more significant,” he said.

A 23-year-old woman in the capital recently left a consulting firm soon after joining. She worked there for less than a month.

Upon entering her former company, she discovered that her daily tasks were remarkably different from the job description she had heard from the employer during the application process, interview and training.

Additionally, the company’s human resources department did not take her seriously when she reported having trouble with another colleague.

This caused her to harbor a growing sense of mistrust of her previous workplace and contributed to her decision to quit.

“Changing jobs at some point was always an option for me,” said the woman. “It just happened sooner rather than later.”

She went on, “Both applicants and employers only show their good sides in interviews. If employees find the conditions at certain workplaces don’t suit them, they can just switch jobs.”

Posts on social media provided her inspiration as well. Searching for entries by those who graduated from college or high school in 2023 but had already changed jobs, she spotted many who had successfully found new places to work.

“I felt a sense of camaraderie with those unknown individuals who gave me courage,” she said. “So I could commit myself fully to securing a post elsewhere.”

In December, she started along her fresh career path in the education industry.

Statistics from the labor ministry show that the percentage of new university graduates who leave their first workplaces within three years has remained stable at about 30 percent over the last 10 years or so.

However, a recent survey points to a noticeable increase in those who view job transfers positively.

According to a study carried out by the recruitment agency Leverages Co. last autumn on 7,300 college graduates who entered the workforce between 2019 and 2023, 4.2 percent left their employers within six months.

Most of them, or 62.3 percent, cited specific “remarks by my supervisors and senior workers” as a reason they started to consider switching jobs.

Meanwhile, as many as 39.7 percent of respondents referred to the recent “positive image” of new graduates changing jobs.

Another 32.0 percent said that “social media posts of third parties considering seeking employment elsewhere” contributed to their decisions too.

MORE TURN TO RECRUITMENT AGENCIES

The changing perception of job changes and professional careers is also reflected in increased registration at recruitment agencies.

Doda, a recruitment site operated by Persol Career Co., is reporting a surge in young individuals who register on the service.

The number of new graduates who entered the workforce last year but also registered on the website was the highest since the site began recording those numbers in 2011.

The number who registered at the very start of their careers was 30 times higher than in 2011, compared to the total registrant number which had increased sixfold.

“Those who hated their employers would go all the way to recruitment sites during the 1990s, leading to the formation of a negative impression of switching jobs,” said Takafumi Sakurai, a deputy editor-in-chief of doda. “In the 2000s, more young people came to choose jobs that would help them to find self-fulfillment.”

The spike in young registrants has yet to result in a significant rise in those actually changing jobs.

“Recruitment sites are serving as a compass for users to know their market value, since even those who do not have any concrete plans to switch workplaces can receive job offers and learn what skills are required for higher wages,” explained Sakurai.

On the other hand, the Recruit Agent service of Recruit Co. is seeing its users 26 years old or younger find new employment opportunities much more frequently.

The number of job transfers among individuals in that age range was 4.8 times higher in fiscal 2022 than the average from fiscal 2009 to fiscal 2013--while job transfers across all age brackets rose 3.62-fold.

Takayoshi Kurita, director of Recruit’s research institute on the future of employment, argued that the workers’ desire to refine their abilities is behind the trend.

“Young people these days want to grow promptly to be armed with the skills to survive any possible situation in this era of VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity),” he said.

Employers are putting out the red carpet for young people who hope to change jobs, as they are involved in increasingly intensified competition for embracing new graduates as staff members.

No less than 80 percent of businesses that post their job openings on the Mynavi Tenshoku site reportedly say they are “welcoming” new graduates planning to change jobs within three years, expressing a keen interest in those young workers.