| This isn't really the main point of his article, but he glosses over one very important point about young people & the work ethic today: People who get labelled as "freeters" aren't necessarily bouncing from job to job voluntarily. For decades Japanese corporations were labor-heavy because of life-time employment. When the bubble burst, they broke that unspoken promise and shed themselves of thousands of workers. When things picked up again, instead of returning to that previous promise, they hired temporary workers. No benefits, no annual pay raises or twice a year bonuses, etc. (And no loyalty from these workers) The Japanese corporate system is set up that you are hired after college at a low salary, but you are guaranteed a steady climb until you can retire comfortably in the end. The corporations pulled the rug out from under that system. So you now have many young people who have been fully employed at MegaCorp for 3 years, but on a contract basis, never knowing when it will end, never getting a decent raise... If you read newspaper and magazine articles here you realize there is an enormous sense of insecurity among the 20 to 30 year age group; and so they are unwilling to take risks, get married, buy homes, etc. People are retreating into themselves. It would make sense that that is linked to minimalism - or at least, a reduced consumerism - but that would only be my own speculation. |
My Japanese teacher 20 years ago bragged that Japanese CEOs don't make obscenely more money than their employees. I countered that western CEOs may make more but they also pay their employees far far more and generally don't making their employees work 10am to 11pm 5+ days a week.
I'm my particular field I halved my salary to come to Japan and tripled it going back to the USA. Even funnier I was working for a Japanese company in the USA. I worked for 2 large Japanese companies (one with 4000+ people. The other with 300,000+ people). Both had limits of ~$60k a year set by the HR department no matter how much experience. That's less than interns make at Google USA. A typical engineer out of school makes around $20k a year at a Japanese company.
Here's some data on average yearly salaries by job type in Japan
https://doda.jp/guide/heikin/gyousyu/
Here's a page from Sony's job info showing starting salary at $2.5k a month or $30k a year
https://www.sony.co.jp/SonyInfo/Jobs/careers/info/detail.htm...
Random ad for C programmer for device drivers at Panasonic. $52k a year.
https://persol-hrpartners.co.jp/tech/SB070200/orderSearch?or...
In fact even more evidence, if you go to Indeed.jp (a job listing site) the settings for salary top out at $60k a year.
Add to that age discrimination (expected age is often in the job listing)