Hong Kong youth take a stab at juggling part-time jobs under ‘slasher’ trend
A pool of younger workers seeking satisfaction doing multiple jobs is challenging employers to change
To more than 27,000 people who subscribe to his YouTube channel, Hongkonger Mike Chow Yik-wai’s life appears to be a fun mix of eating delicious food, getting the latest anime merchandise and travelling.
Behind the scenes, Chow, 32, makes a considerable effort to juggle his time between different jobs, describing himself as a “vlogger/drum instructor/freelance video editor”.
He is part of Hong Kong’s growing community of “slashers”, people who tap their diverse interests and areas of expertise to earn a living by doing multiple jobs simultaneously.
They turn up with slashes in their job descriptions, taking after “American author/ public speaker/non-profit leader” Marci Alboher, who highlighted the phenomenon in her 2007 book, One person/Multiple careers: A New Model for Work/Life Success.
Such mix-and-match careers have caught on with younger Hongkongers and differ from freelancing, which involves doing the same kind of work for multiple clients, by using various talents for each of their multiple roles.
According to a survey by Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups in 2022, nearly four-fifths of 525 people aged 15 to 39 who were polled agreed that an individual could have multiple jobs at the same time.
The proportion has stayed above 70 per cent since the question was added to the annual Youth Value Indicators survey in 2019.
