All this while, his parents had also paid for his car, cell-phone, his dates and his monthly upkeep, plus an occasional holiday abroad.

Since his company closed down in 2004, Gary (who declined to give his full name) has failed several times to get “a suitable” job before giving up. Mostly, the salary did not meet his expectations.

He isn’t the only graduate here who is living off his parents. The bout of high-level unemployment in the past decade has brought out some bad features of Singapore’s pampered generation that lingers even today.

There are two parts of the same problem. First is an over-dependence on parents or living off them after graduation and secondly, a general reluctance or inability to hold on to a job for the flimsiest of reasons.

The majority of Singaporeans still retains a culture of hard work and ambition for success. Most kids study very hard for their degrees not for the sake of staying at home.

But a minority is evidently growing as indicated in this letter, which says, “There seems to be an increasing number of young people who continue to take money from their parents even though they have graduated from university and with no intention of finding a job.

“They often use excuses like the job’s too tiring, salary too low, long working hours, workplace too far, or simply it’s not interesting enough.”

He thinks that parents dote too much on their kids, creating an attitude “Why should I work when my parents can support me?”

At the same time, youths with high academic grades – there are lots of them – often see themselves as executive or leadership material even though they have no work experience. They want a salary that fits their expectation.

Except for a short period when retrenchment was high, youths were generally not overly fearful about not finding a job – only not getting a well-paying one. Some repeatedly turn down “below par” offers, preferring to wait for an ideal one.

One lady, for example, took off for a month-long backpacking Europe vacation immediately after graduation with parental approval.

“I need a break before I start my career,” she told them.

That trip lasted five months and cost more than S$25,000, before a threat to stop the funds forced her to return. Some wealthier kids are provided with a supplementary credit card.

These are the children born of the prosperous 80s, single babies or from small families and have grown up without suffering any hardship that their peers in less developed countries routinely go through.

This laidback trend, although confined to a small number, could pose a big problem for a small city-state that survives on its people’s efforts. It also comes at a time when countries like China and India are working unbelievably hard to compete in studies and jobs.

Critics place part of the blame on over-indulgent parents who believe that supporting their jobless children is helping them and is part of their parental duty.

“They have more money than sense. Far from helping, they’re ruining their lives,” a businessman friend said.

An employer, he has frequently been confronted by youths who come to a job interview with a list of demands.

Singapore is probably following the rich West, where many fresh graduates take long vacations before embarking on their first job.

During the course of my reporting, I have met some of these pre-career vacationers in Bali. While millions of Asians could not find work, these Europeans and Australians were spending months soaking in the sun and the sea.

The easy life was so good and the prospect of a job back home so daunting that some of them didn't want to leave.

On one occasion, I saw a queue of Australian and German youths outside the main Denpasar post office, waiting for money from home.

An Australian told me that he had just got his accounting degree and wanted a break from the hard campus work before seeking a job, but somehow the days extended into eight months. He knew of someone who had stayed for two years.

“This carefree life is addictive. Once hooked, it's hard to break free,” he admitted. “My worry is getting back to a normal life without forgetting what I learned in university.”

Singapore is far from this phenomenon. However, there are signs that being unemployed has lost the sense of shame among the younger set because of a changed global economy.

In the past, being fired carried a dirty stigma because it implied the employee had done something wrong. Today, anyone can be fired for a variety of reasons – business downsizing, cost cutting, outsourcing, company mergers, and so on – so the youths don’t feel any sense of shame when they are jobless.

In a speech at a high school not long ago, Bill Gates lamented that “feel-good, politically correct teachings” had created a generation of youths who had “no concept of reality” and which are setting them up for failure in the real world.

He told the students these harsh facts: “Rule 1: Life is not fair – get used to it! And Rule 2: the world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.”

o Seah Chiang Nee is a veteran journalist and editor of the information website littlespeck.com

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