Rate of Death of Youthful Dreams Reaches New High

In the first week of April every year, when new graduates enter the workforce at their companies, there's a customary spike in the mortality rate of youthful dreams.

Even this early in the month, however, the Bureau of Statistics has announced that this rate has reached a new high. For every 100,000 graduates starting employment, the number realizing that their futures hold nothing but soul-eroding drudgery is 17,844, an increase of 219 from last year.

Two men about to spend their entire lives in futile corporate servitude

Bureau officials believe that the internet is partly responsible for the rise. "The spread of social media has made it difficult for companies to effectively conceal the reality of working life," sad BoS clerk Haru Karoshi. "It's easy for new employees to learn from old hands that working life will be an inescapable cycle of long routine days and insufficent sleep, exhausting their will to live before they reach 25."

This is borne out by anecdotal evidence from companies. Kanago Nao, a recent graduate from Nagoya Happiness University, told In Other News, "I hoped that starting work would give me the time and money to pursue my interests in music and dance, but after two days I know that's hopeless, and I can already feel my spirit wilting like last week's flowers. Life is just going to be a slog, like pushing rocks through knee-deep mud, and any free time I ever have, I'll just spend weeping quietly."

The Ministry of Employment and Welfare has already responded to the increase. "The government will encourage companies to hire year-round, rather than only in April," explained Karoshi. "That way, the spike will disappear, which will mean young people must have become happier."