Bloomberg Businessweek October 5, 2020 pp32-39 |4|ECONOMICS| “The Scars of Japan’s Employment Ice Age” “Japanese open up about the difficulties they’ve faced in charting career paths”. By Yoshiaki Nohara.
Image Credit unseenjapan.com
2244 found this article interesting as America with low interest rates and higher unemployment potentially face a myriad of consequences experienced since the 1990s in Japan. Read the article for more narrative.
Facts presented in charts
Share of Japan’s employed workers:
· In the Year 2002 females participated in the workforce holding 20% of regular and 20% of contracted jobs by 2019 their fraction of regular positions was unchanged but contracted edged up to 26%.
· In the Year 2002 males participated in the workforce holding 47% of regular and 9% of contracted jobs by 2019 their regular jobs shrunk to 41% and contracted roles increased to 20%.
Entry-Level job openings in Japan per college graduate, by graduating year.
· By 1990 there were about 3 job openings available per graduate
· By 1999 there were about 1 job opening available per graduate (Ice Age)
· By 2008 there were slightly more than 2 job openings available per graduate
· By 2013 there were about 1.2 job openings available per graduate
· Currently there are about 1.9 job opening available per graduate and estimate to fall to about 1.5 by 2021. (Return to the Ice Age)
Share of 50-Year-Olds who have never married.
· Females 5% in 1980 increased to about 14% now
· Males 3% on 1980 increased to about 23% now
Fertility rate in Japan
· Peaked in the 1980s at more than 1.75 and crashed to about 1.25 in 2006 peaked again to about 1.4 in 2019 and has fallen know to an estimated 1.3. Note replacement population rate is 2.1.
Summary of Article
For generations now, Japan has had a “hidebound hiring system” that offers a best chance for obtaining a secure lifetime corporate job in the year leading up to university graduation. If a candidate doesn’t “land” they are will “flit from one low-paying job to the next, with little avenue for advancement and zero job security.” By 2000 after a “decade since Japan’s bubble economy had collapsed, and employers drastically scaled back new hires to protect older workers…the labor market had entered an ‘ice age’.”
A 2015 census tallied 3.4 million (2.7%) in their 40s and 50s “who had not married and lived with their elderly parents in a situation dubbed the “8050 problem.” There are also 613,000 middle-aged hikikomori-or socially withdrawn individuals. Of those, hikikomori, in their 40s one-in-three became “shut-ins” being unable to find work after graduation. Many are children of parents that were “well-to-do”, who held and prospered in lifelong corporate work. Around the country groups, although constrained during the pandemic, have been formed to help individuals find a path out of the ice age. Elders understand the situation as noted by Tomoko Nakagawa, Mayor of Takarazuka, “This is the generation that was forced to swim in the murky water.” Some of the affected blame themselves and others keep searching for a better future moving from one contracted-job, lower paying-without benefits-no job security, to another and in some cases incorporating side gigs. As noted, the fraction of contracted jobs has increased with women holding 20% of regular roles and 26% of contracted roles and men know holding 41% of regular jobs (down from 46% in 1980) and 20% of contracted roles (up from 9% in 1980). Seeing the disparity for women, Yu Takekawa, a 38YO women profiled in the article, notes “I felt women were not even considered.”
Now with COVID Shibuya-famed for nightlife “was deserted during the seven-week-long state of emergency that ended May 25, [and it now] doesn’t have the same energy it did before the outbreak.” Major and small employers are responding to the COVID pandemic by scaling back the number of available roles for emerging university graduates to 1.53. Wataru Kubo, who started a support group, notes “It’s like the employment ice age…it’s happening again.”
Social worker, Reiko Katsube, who coined the termed the term “8050 Problem” makes rounds in Osaka “rehabilitating shut-ins” including programs that helps shut-ins “learn social skills by engaging in activities such as gardening music, sports and volunteering. Reiko also manages a local market serving the community-those who no longer drive or bike and offering some employment. Bine Marche, the market, then is both “practical and therapeutic.”
Comments