January 28, 2004
DOING NOTHING:
Japan's graduates losing faith in corporate icons: Even electronics giant Sony has stumbled. (Bennett Richardson, 1/29/04, CS Monitor)
A closely watched survey by D&L Co., a Tokyo research firm, found late last week that the carmaker Toyota was the new champion, while Sony, which is undergoing a series of radical reforms, had fallen to an ignominious third place.The survey results speak to the changing aspirations - and heightened sense of anxiety - that many young job seekers in Japan who grew up during a protracted economic slump hold about the workplace. If Sony can stumble, they ask, where can I find job security?
Some graduates are opting for smaller, forward looking firms and are keenly aware of the implications of entering a firm with a shaky business plan. "It'll be tough to get ahead in the world unless you enter a company where the earnings are going to improve in the future, rather than a company which has good earnings now," says one Japanese university student.
Others have shed long-term career aspirations altogether, according to labor analysts. Flying in the face of the traditionally strong Japanese work ethic, young people now tend "to not enthusiastically look for work and [instead] become itinerant part-time workers or do nothing after graduation," says Reiko Kosugi, assistant research director at the Japan Institute for Labor Policy and Training.
Maybe it's just because none have done so yet that so few can comprehend that several developed nations are headed for collapse. But these dying nations have lessons to teach us, if only we pay attention. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 28, 2004 06:39 PM
Things in Japan would be so much better if the banks would just write off their debt. Economic recovery would speedily occur.
Posted by: Chris Durnell at January 29, 2004 10:45 AMHow, with no young people?
Posted by: oj at January 29, 2004 12:45 PMAll the way down to third? What a disaster!
However, the premise of this piece is based on a myth. That bit about lifetime employment and all never applied to more than a small proportion of Japanese workers at a small proportion of companies.
I am minded of a remark I heard the head of IBM-Japan make at a conference once, that the bullet trains are never off schedule. In fact, when the snow is heavy, they don't run.
Japan is doing very well thanks, and if you use robots, you don't need many young people.
Chris is right about the banks, but the people of Japan apparently have decided that rapid economic growth is not the greatest good. They might be right, too.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at January 29, 2004 05:37 PMAh, yes, those tax-paying robots.
Posted by: oj at January 29, 2004 06:33 PMWell, yes. If they generate profits, they generate taxes.
Whether the Japanese model can work is still in doubt. But a $5 trillion economy is nothing to sneeze at.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at January 30, 2004 01:29 PMThey were going to pass us now they're less than half our GDP--that's called decline.
Posted by: oj at January 30, 2004 01:48 PMOnly fools thought they were going to pass us.
Some of those fools also said the real estate in Tokyo was worth more than all the real estate in No. America, too.
There's a lot of nonsense printed about economics.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at January 31, 2004 02:10 PMOnly fools assume that economic trends, or demographic trends, are linear.
Posted by: Robert D at January 31, 2004 05:12 PMBoth are mere effects--it's the causes that are linear in this case.
Posted by: oj at January 31, 2004 05:22 PM