Dissatisfied with long hours and lower wages, Tokyo University graduates and career bureaucrats are resigning- “The Japanese practice of mass hiring new graduates, seniority-based wages and lifetime employment has reached its limit..Success on entrance exams is no longer guaranteed to be rewarded.”
https://president.jp/articles/-/114591
2 Comments
You have to work hard to get into one the better universities but also you have to be of somewhat good social standing in the first place.
The generations that understand why lifetime employment started in the first place are long gone now. During the Meiji times, many people in Tokyo were working day wages. Companies started competing to get the best laborers with wage increases. This led to a huge issue with bidding wars. After realizing all of this, companies colluded to create long term employment to suppress wage wars. It worked. Until now. Companies now have more leverage and more options. AI will drive this further. Of course this explanation is an oversimplification of the history but it is the major reason. There will be some interesting consequences with this generation losing opportunities. Parents now cannot afford to support adult children in the next 10 years. There will be a huge awakening at some point that this was all for nothing but it will be too late.