“People blame Japan’s sluggish economy on population decline, but neighboring China, Taiwan and ROK continue to grow despite similar demographic issues. Japan’s real problem is productivity- it has many small companies that can’t or won’t make the necessary investments to do work at scale”
https://wedge.ismedia.jp/articles/-/40303
14 Comments
tl;dr
They want to make it easier to fire people, right?
These assholes answers to fixing economies is always “strip employees of rights and give corporations free rein.”
Best line in the article:
>韓国のドラマでは、財閥の事業承継において、夫人愛人息子娘婿嫁婚外子らが相争って承継を狙うシーンがよく描かれている。
夫人愛人息子嫁婿婚外子 is just epic.
Those countries don’t have the same demographic issues yet….the yet is important. The median age in Japan is 50, for Korea and Taiwan it’s around 45 and for China it’s 40. Their big booms didn’t happen in the late 40s and 50s like Japan but rather in the late 50s and early 60s, so the first large cohort of workers is just now starting to retire. Japan started aging sooner but the slope has been much more gradual. Those other countries will be in Japan’s position by the end of the decade, and that’s the rosy outlook.
Japan ranks very low in productivity and efficiency compared to other OECD countries. Interestingly, the issue isn’t its larger global companies or manufacturing sectors, it’s the domestic companies and industries that drag the whole country down. When I first moved here from the US and was working at a very dynamic and fast paced company, then moved and took a position at a local branch of a largely domestic focused company, the difference was shocking.
They’ve waited too long to try and reform work life. Happy workers are productive but Japanese culture says happy people are frivolous and unserious. So businesses are failing and young people are saying no thanks, skipping marriage and kids, and that removes the customer base…it’s a vicious cycle.
Now it’s too late. MOST small/medium Japanese businesses will be gone within 5-10 years. One of the city council members I know says that in a nearby town there were about 80 small businesses when he started and 30 of them have closed in the last 2 years. The rest are on the way out. The combini and gas station will be the last holdouts before they close too.
One company I’m familiar with is actually a world-class maker of hand-tools in a very specific niche…but they don’t do any marketing, they pay workers shit, and the owner is in his 80’s and just kept the money in the bank, buying a fancy car every few years. HIs kids have careers of their own and have no interest in the business. He’ll die, the govt will take everything and his legacy will be an empty lot.
17th century business practices don’t work so well in a modern world, and that describes most Jpanese businesses.
“Productivity” in capitalism means pay less to workers to make them more so that rich gets richer.
They want us all to be confused between “economy” – GDP growth that benefits only rich – and “affordability” that benefits workers.
Only “people” blaming sluggish economy is rich not getting richer. They want to pay workers less.
This may sound stupid but I genuinely have no idea but with so much tourism money being brought into japan; how is the yen still going down?
Make sense. Pace and scale are the decisive factors of competitiveness in the 21st century.
Work culture, communication, and preforming rather than working. Doesn’t apply to everyone and every kind of job but is wide spread enough to have a significant impact
As always they’re ignoring the actual issue: Japanese bureacracy, ageism, and generalist organization. The bulk of Japanese workers aren’t specialists in anything, and it takes half a dozen hankos from half a dozen middle managers to get anything to work.
They’re all zombie companies after all right. Have to pull out loans to make payroll rather than invest in their productivity. Oh whale.
Japan old fucks in the company are insufferable. They deny any new idea and wait for their retirement but they do pay my wage on time every time.
The biggest problem is housing. Most apartments are 1K, 1R, 1DK. Imagine if these were 2K then I’m sure most will consider having a family. Oh well. This isn’t talked about so maybe it’s not a big problem.
Japan was innovative in the 80s and 90s until Uncle Sam made them sign the plaza accords.