Slow mornings, unconventional working hours with freedom and a flexible work schedule is becoming a popular way for youngsters to live, thanks to the internet, which has made such a lifestyle possible.

On a Tuesday morning when most of his friends were working in their office, Yogi Elsya Aprianto, 26, was chilling and having lunch near the Harau waterfall in Payakumbuh, about two hours away from Bukittinggi, West Sumatra.

“I usually have a slow morning on weekdays. Like today, I have this job to shoot a video for the Bukittingi Tourism Agency at around 6 p.m. So, I wake up late and hang out with my friends first before I meet my clients,” Yogi, who works as a Bukittinggi-based freelance photographer told The Jakarta Post.

Photography has been Yogi’s hobby and passion since he was in college. It has been about three years since he turned his hobby into his freelancing job. Yogi said he got his jobs personally and from several event organizer agencies in Bukittinggi, which often call him for video-making and photography jobs.

Yogi could easily be put in the precariat bracket, a term to describe people whose lives are precarious because they have little or no job security. Yogi knows the risks but he lives it fully.  

“I could stay up late finishing my video or photo editing. I also have to self-manage my workload, maintain my networking, insurance and schedules. Yes, it is tiring but I can take the exhaustion because I love it. […] I really can’t stand the idea of working from Monday to Friday, from 9 to 5 and then getting a paycheck only once every month,” he added.

However, like most Indonesians whose parents’ idea of having a secure job is by being a civil servant or working in a big company, Yogi’s parents often criticize his career choice.

“My four other siblings work as a banker, a doctor and civil servants. In my city, settled jobs like that are something to be very proud of. My parents can’t stand watching me wake up late and wandering around town with no office to work in. The neighbors keep asking them about me so that’s why they keep pushing me to apply for civil service jobs, but I really don’t want it,” Yogi said.

Last year after being cornered by his parents, for the first time in his life he finally tried to apply for a job and worked in a bank in Bukittingi. Having studied management, Yogi's parents really wished he would finally have a "conventional" job.

“It only lasted six months. It was stressful for me. I was very anxious about my work and I did not enjoy it at all. It was very low-paid too. With my freelance photography I could earn the same amount in only four days,” he said.

Like Yogi, more and more Indonesians, especially youngsters, have chosen the precariat way of life, mostly for the freedom and flexible working schedule.

In October 2018, the National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Reduction published a report on the future of the social protection system in Indonesia. The report said the Indonesian labor market faced excessive rigidity within the formal sector. Indonesia’s hiring and firing regulations are among the most inflexible in the world. Indonesia has the highest rate of severance pay after four years of service across a number of Asian countries. This high rate of severance pay has had an impact on its labor market and economy, and there are concerns among employees over the costs of laying off workers.

“[Therefore] they prefer to employ people on informal or semi-formal terms or on short contracts and are less likely to invest in training and skills development,” the report said.

This surely opens more doors for precariat groups including freelancers, part-timers and outsourcing workers to take the opportunities, of course with all of the precariousness.

Although there is no exact data on how many people live as precariats in Indonesia, data from Statistics Indonesia (BPS) shows there is a large number of informal workers in Indonesia. In August 2018, about 70.49 million people, 56.84 percent of Indonesian workers were informal workers.

Nur Aini of Sindikasi, a trade union for media and creative workers, said Indonesian precariat workers shared similar vulnerabilities, such as the uncertainty of future work and violation of their labor rights.

While part-time and outsourcing jobs were recognized in the 2003 Labor Law, freelance jobs were not identified in the law and therefore they do not have clear legal protection.

“Freelancers also have a unique vulnerability: the idea that the freelancer’s working hours are flexible. Flexible work hours are often then interpreted as being able to work anytime, which makes them prone to overworking,” Nur said.

On Monday, with more than 46,000 followers on Instagram, Dinda Puspitasari, 29, a Jakarta-based fashion illustrator shared a post showing off various pouches and keychains with her drawings on it: her newest collaboration project with Revlon cosmetics.

For the last three years, Dinda has been working as a full-time freelancer for local and international cosmetic and fashion brands such as Louis Vuitton and Dior, among others.  

She once worked at an advertising agency for about six months but then quit as she quickly found herself “burned out and bored”.

Dinda said she sometimes felt annoyed at how people, especially youngsters, glorified freelance work for the sense of freedom it brings, as such glorification did not consider the "bleeding" part of freelancing.

Dinda said that although she was grateful to be able to do her hobby as a job, she also had to self-manage herself, from meetings with clients to financial management.

“You have to manage it all while you are also working. Young people out there have to think about it thoroughly before they decide to jump into freelance work. […] You cannot just think about idealism; you will not be able to live if you think that way,” she said.

“I often have to work until 3 a.m. People say freelancers have more free time but that’s not entirely true. I work on weekends. I take days off on Mondays, but sometimes my clients still reach out to me on Mondays, so they are not really days off. If I get sick I cannot take sick leave like when I’m working at an office because my client will still ask for their order when it is due,” she added.

Another freelancer, Jati Andito, a Jakarta-based freelance voice-over artist who is a member of Sindikasi, shares the same concern. Besides focusing on his projects, he at least has to also handle his own social media platforms, maintain client relationships, understand financial literacy and manage his monthly cash flow.

“Our income is not stable; sometimes we get a lot of orders, sometimes not that many. So we have to manage our cash flow and how we spend our money for tax, insurance, our monthly spending such as food and home mortgage. […] So, we do not only focus on working but also have to possess financial skills and not all of us fully understand these skills” Jati said.

Nur from Sindikasi said freelancer vulnerability ranged from unclear working relation and long working hours to overworking and working without social insurance.

“Yes they can work with flexible hours but it must be regulated so they will not overwork,” she said.

“They usually use the term freelancer, consultant, partnership and none of them have any legal protection. The Labor Law does not accommodate these freelancers, so it should be changed with a labor law that can accommodate freelancers too,” she said.

Center of Reform on Economics Indonesia research director Piter Abdullah said that although there had been changes in the way Indonesians saw the concept of work, such as job security, the concept shift was not that widespread yet.

“They [the freelancers] are growing fast but they are still a minority. The change is happening in some people in the millennial generation, especially those who live in big cities. Those who do not have enough financial support from their family will still see job security [in formal jobs] as an important factor for their sustainability,” Piter said pointing out that at work fairs people still lined up to apply for formal jobs. People still also enthusiastically applied to work as civil servants, he added.

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