http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicde...y-chart-18

This chart shows that employers in Japan are reporting the greatest difficulty in the world filling jobs. Apparently there is a ridiculous labor shortage in Japan right now. At the same time, Japanese college graduates are reporting record difficulties finding employment.

Thoughts?

Is there a huge mis-match in the kind of skills that are required in the market, compared to what is coming out of Japanese universities?

This chart has puzzled me as well. I'm almost thinking that the Japanese value is a survey error or translation mistake.

I can think of good reasons to explain the other countries' labor markets: Brazil has a poor school education system, as studies always show, where only a tiny group does extremely well. Australia has a still booming mining economy. The US is a bit more tricky, but a lot of people whose houses are worth less than their mortgage cannot move to where they might find a job. India same as Brazil. Taiwan, dunno. Argentina and Mexico are like Brazil in this respect, only less so. Germany has a skill mismatch (not enough engineers, too many sociologists), a demographic problem, and issues with the recognition of foreign qualifications. Singapore and Sweden are actually booming economies. As we move to the countries with below average difficulties... Canada has an excellent education system, Greece, mass unemployment, China, large rural labor force and (still) a fairly unsophisticated economy in many parts, Italy has growing unemployment, as do Britain, Spain, Ireland, but it's a recent phenomenon so there are many skilled people available.

Can you pick a mix of any of these factors to explain Japan? I would think Japan should be like Germany, only more extreme.

There are big shortages in engineering, IT, and health care in Japan but I'm not sure if that would account for a shortage that big.

I always seem to get the impression that the real problem for many people in Japan at the moment is not an absolute lack of jobs, but more a lack of good jobs (fewer 正社員 jobs and more バイト style jobs). Maybe that has some sort of effect on the figures, for example maybe employers are finding it hard to fill some jobs because the work conditions they can offer are not good enough to tempt young graduates to work for them.

It would be interesting to see a breakdown by type of work and industry. The disappointed job seekers are univ grads looking for prestige jobs, aren't they? (sorry, haven't had a change to read the articles in that thread.) The labourer/trades situation might be different.

Japan has relied on immigrant temp manual workers. Is it possible tighter immigration policy is throwing a wrench in that supply and many Japanese aren't willing to do those kinds of jobs? (When I was a student there, Japan had created special visa arrangement to allow huge numbers of Iranians to work in Japan.) On second thought, hasn't Japan been paying Japanese Brazilians to go home in the downturn? Again, what industries are we talking about.

As for health care [edit: I was thinking nurses, but it's actually doctors], I think they're trying to reduce the number of "entertainer" visas issued to women from other Asian countries (mostly Philippines) and instead train them for nursing/caregiver jobs to handle the ever-expanding seniors bulge. I was under the impression not enough Japanese women are interested in those jobs.

There's also a need for experienced intl bankers and lawyers, but I don't see those types of jobs skewing the numbers.

With the prestige of big companies and urban lifestyle, are young people less willing to work in small and med businesses in more outlying areas? I see articles about Japanese men in rural areas needing to import wives from SE Asia and wonder where the Japanese women disappeared to.

The graph says "% of respondents". Maybe that created some distortion? [edit: each employer's worth 1 count regardless of the number of workers needed, types of employers who choose to participate, etc.]

There's more detailed information on the survey creator's homepage.

http://manpowergroup.us/campaigns/talent-shortage-2012/

Basically they are going on about Engineers and a shortage of hard skills in Japan with 62% of companies surveyed citing lack of "hard skills" as a major issue.

Also soft skills is brought up too. Especially a problem with "lack of motivation" in Japan.

JAPAN: TOP 10 JOBS EMPLOYERS ARE HAVING DIFFICULTY FILLING
1. Engineers
2. Sales Reps
3. Accounting and Finance
4. Technicians
5. IT Staff
6. Sales Managers
7. IT Managers
8. Doctors and Other Nonnursing
9. Customer Service
10. Supervisors

kitakitsune Wrote:JAPAN: TOP 10 JOBS EMPLOYERS ARE HAVING DIFFICULTY FILLING
1. Engineers
2. Sales Reps
3. Accounting and Finance
4. Technicians
5. IT Staff
6. Sales Managers
7. IT Managers
8. Doctors and Other Nonnursing
9. Customer Service
10. Supervisors

Sales reps?! Seriously?!
I love that supervisors is at the bottom of that; least THAT facet fits my image of Japan. Japan has a mountain of people looking to work middle management pencil pusher jobs. Thats basically what most people go to Uni for hoping to get out of college.

The engineering thing doesn't surprise me though. You look at any large econ country in the world and the number one thing they list that they don't have enough of is engineers. You hear it ALL. THE. *****. TIME. in the US. However, what I have heard instead is that this is largely BS because plenty of people graduate with STEM degrees and then suddenly realize that the degree is largely just as useless as most other degrees. A lot of what companies want are people with years of experience/nich people. Other problem is no one is willing to PAY for people with experience.

I think its most interesting that healthcare is low on that list though considering there's this supposed looming issue with not enough healthcare workers for the coming surge in old people.

Quote:Also soft skills is brought up too. Especially a problem with "lack of motivation" in Japan.

I remember reading an article about people interviewing for a news company. I believe the CEO or some high ranking editor was sitting on the interview panel. He had asked them "What stuff do you read?" or "What do you think about~?" and the interviewees gave these wishy-washy answers that annoyed the editor. Basically he was complaining that people had become too Japanese and had no backbone whatsoever.

The product of their creation.

Maybe if Japanese companies actually paid decent salaries for IT jobs, they wouldn't have so much trouble filling them.

kitakitsune, thanks for the info.

' Wrote:Is there a huge mis-match in the kind of skills that are required in the market, compared to what is coming out of Japanese universities?

I noticed that for the Americas group one strategy to solve the talent mismatch was to work with the universities. This strategy didn't appear on the Asia Pacific groups list. This applies more to engineering than some of the other jobs, though (which could be trained in-house more easily.)

Investment in training might be a more viable solution in Japan as there's still less job movement. Elsewhere, you'd think paying for experience/qualifications would be a safer bet.

If, as the report indicates, the aging/retiring workforce is the main problem, that would suggest a serious lack of planning, don't you think? Seems like there must be some other reason for those numbers.

It wasn't clear to me whether this is limited to domestic hires or includes foreign hires as well. The list of hard skills includes speaking skills as well as foreign language ability. Ability to speak one's native language is a problem? If it includes foreign employees, then the complaints about inter-personal skills and motivation become a different issue. It would also affects salary competitiveness.

Matt, low salaries were indeed mentioned as a problem, particularly for engineers in Japan. Seems like a simple fix. I noticed (for Asia Pacific) that 13% of employers (too lazy to check %) listed candidates were unwilling to work for offered salary, but we don't know if they accepted better pay in the respective country or not. 9% of companies were willing to start paying more.

I'm now curious how many engineering grads end up doing actual engineering work. I have 3 engineers in my family (mechanical and physics) and only one of them ever worked as an engineer (and only for a few years before getting into mgmt.) Amongst their engineer friends, very few do engineering work. Seems like a waste of education/skills when I see how in demand they are globally. Is this common?

matto Wrote:Maybe if Japanese companies actually paid decent salaries for IT jobs, they wouldn't have so much trouble filling them.

On average how much do IT people get paid in Japan?

Without looking, I'd bet IT salaries probably fall in the $60-80k range. Its always been my impression with Japan that not very many people make over $100k a year (7.9M Yen).

Actually I just googled a bit (IT　平均年収）. Behold!
http://www.itranking.net/yearlyincome.php　
The companies in the 31-60 rank range are 7.0M yen - 7.9M yen which is just shy of $100k so I guess if you get a decent company then you can make a decent amount. I imagine average salary doesn't count for those taking entry level spots though.

I remember reading a review on Amazon.jp where a programmer mentioned going temporarily blind because of his job. He wrote about it like it was a matter of course. 100k might sound like a lot, but not if you're working in that kind of environment. Maybe the bigger companies aren't so draconian. Somebody told me the average Japanese IT worker retires/changes fields at age 50 for health reasons. Not sure who it encompasses or if there's anything to it, but it wouldn't be surprising.

Japanese business culture is a cancer on society. Its to blame for almost all of Japan's major problems.

With regards the Engineering problem, I`m an engineering grad now working for an electronics firm in Japan. I do literally no engineering work. Granted it`s a two year training program and they`re letting us get up to speed on some Japanese first.

The problem is that engineering courses in university don`t teach you how to be an engineer, at least anymore. They give you the basics and a foundation knowledge that can then be built upon in specific fields. It seems, though, that knowledge base is so broad that employers are put off hiring people, especially in today`s climate, unless they`re already skilled. No one wants to invest in training new graduates with such an uncertain future.

I was lucky. Japanese firms, as people have said, play the long game. After my two years, they expect a renewal of my contract and then for me to move to America or Europe, maybe in dev. or possibly sales and liason with the Japanese end of things. It`s a very clever move and has worked for them in the past. As for me, I`m not sure whether or not I`ll do that, I`ll decide when the time comes.

callmedodge Wrote:The problem is that engineering courses in university don`t teach you how to be an engineer, at least anymore. They give you the basics and a foundation knowledge that can then be built upon in specific fields.

Are you sure this is a failure of the schools though? Or is it merely a failure of the students? I mean considering how university tends to function in the Japanese system, I would almost believe its the fault of the students for not applying themselves. I HAVE heard however that students in STEM degrees tend to actually apply themselves to their studies though compared to humanities.

@Callmedodge, what a fantastic opportunity you have! I have a friend who was a regular trainee with a Japanese company for 3 yrs straight out of univ. He lived in a dorm and worked his butt off. Not always fun, but he later returned to NYC and basically wrote his own ticket. He had amazing casual and business Japanese, specialized language knowledge, industry knowledge, friends and contacts, familiarity Japanese with business culture and mgmt practices, etc. Good luck!

Your situation makes me think those sales rep job mentioned are technical sales reps. In other words, a job required specialized knowledge.

@Vix86, you're so down on Japan today. :-) I think it's pretty common for professional degree grads to still require practical training or further specialization. There always a debate between those who think universities should pump out people armed with practical skills to hit the ground running, and those who think univ should provide a broad solid foundation and the practical training should occur at work (or further specialization should occur at grad programs, research facilities, hospitals, etc.) As fields have become more and more complex, it's difficult to be a generalist anything anymore.

My understanding is that Japanese universities have traditionally handled more theoretical research and corporate research centres do more applied research. So my guess would be that engineers not bound for the academic world would specialize in-house rather than at grad school. Callmedodge might be able confirm if that's the case.

I think the economic slump meant that reduced corporate R&D budgets impacted Japan differently than it would other countries whose research is more govt/univ based. There was talk of trying to get state universities working on more practical stuff as part of the innovation rhetoric.

Purrlsta Wrote:

matto Wrote:Maybe if Japanese companies actually paid decent salaries for IT jobs, they wouldn't have so much trouble filling them.

On average how much do IT people get paid in Japan?

I haven't worked in IT for a Japanese company but friends who have have told me that generally IT people get paid 1万/month times their age. So a 25 year old would be making 25万 per month, a 30-year old, 30万 per month and so on which is ridiculously low.

They have also mentioned that, in general, IT people are generally just seen as monkeys to fulfill orders which probably goes hand in hand with the low salaries.

Thora Wrote:My understanding is that Japanese universities have traditionally handled more theoretical research and corporate research centres do more applied research. So my guess would be that engineers not bound for the academic world would specialize in-house rather than at grad school. Callmedodge might be able confirm if that's the case.

I think the economic slump meant that reduced corporate R&D budgets impacted Japan differently than it would other countries whose research is more govt/univ based. There was talk of trying to get state universities working on more practical stuff as part of the innovation rhetoric.

I think this general operating procedure in the states as well. Business provide a large amount of the funding in the US for research as well (Research funding graph breakdown, quite old data but you get the idea). Companies have a hard time justifying basic research which is why the US govt. tends to do a lot of it (not that they are any more understanding, but the bureaucracy provides more cover).

I'm not sure of corporate finance status right now, but if its anything like the US; a lot of companies are sitting on large amounts of capital right now. They COULD be spending it on research, but the argument goes that "there isn't any demand for it, so why bother spending it."

I wish there was more talk in media about the technical side of Japan schools, because the 文系 side gets lots of bad coverage and makes college in Japan look like a total joke.

matto Wrote:I haven't worked in IT for a Japanese company but friends who have have told me that generally IT people get paid 1万/month times their age. So a 25 year old would be making 25万 per month, a 30-year old, 30万 per month and so on which is ridiculously low.

They have also mentioned that, in general, IT people are generally just seen as monkeys to fulfill orders which probably goes hand in hand with the low salaries.

Thats ridiculous. Are they Japanese people? Are you sure they are 正社員? They could just be some weird form of 派遣社員 or temp work. That would explain the low wage but man. Such a good example of the problems drowning Japan, if that's very common.

I don`t understand why people use Japanese words to explain things that we clearly have English for in debates in English. Who are you trying to impress?

I`ll be back later with a full reply when I have time.

Because saying "full time worker" doesn't quite reflect what a 正社員 has (secure employment usually long term, benefits, pension, upward career movement). A dispatch worker (派遣） is basically full time, but in no way the same.

I also forget English words but remember them in Japanese. But we've had this argument in another thread, so I won't bother with it here.

matto Wrote:I haven't worked in IT for a Japanese company but friends who have have told me that generally IT people get paid 1万/month times their age. So a 25 year old would be making 25万 per month, a 30-year old, 30万 per month and so on which is ridiculously low.

They have also mentioned that, in general, IT people are generally just seen as monkeys to fulfill orders which probably goes hand in hand with the low salaries.

Those are normal salaries for entry level jobs throughout most industries in Japan. The yearly salary growth of 100,000 yen is actually higher than normal (assuming no change in responsibilities - ie. not moving up the ladder) since most companies peg their salary increases to the inflation rate.

What you are forgetting though is bonuses. They can be a significant percentage of their yearly salary....

They do get bonuses right? If they didn't, I would think your friends were some kind of dispatched temp type of employee. And those people are indeed the bottom of the barrel in the Japanese business world.

I think the correct American business English would be "salaried" and "temp" workers for 正社員 and 派遣 while conveying the basic point.

vix86 Wrote:Because saying "full time worker" doesn't quite reflect what a 正社員 has (secure employment usually long term, benefits, pension, upward career movement). A dispatch worker (派遣） is basically full time, but in no way the same.

I also forget English words but remember them in Japanese. But we've had this argument in another thread, so I won't bother with it here.

If you`re using Japanese on a daily basis I can understand you`re second reasoning. And yes, "Full-time worker" doesn`t cover that but "career" does. It`s just a pain having to copy and paste into a translator. Not all of us are fluent.

Edit: But yes, no more on this.

callmedodge Wrote:

vix86 Wrote:Because saying "full time worker" doesn't quite reflect what a 正社員 has (secure employment usually long term, benefits, pension, upward career movement). A dispatch worker (派遣） is basically full time, but in no way the same.

I also forget English words but remember them in Japanese. But we've had this argument in another thread, so I won't bother with it here.

If you`re using Japanese on a daily basis I can understand you`re second reasoning. And yes, "Full-time worker" doesn`t cover that but "career" does. It`s just a pain having to copy and paste into a translator. Not all of us are fluent.

Edit: But yes, no more on this.

Thread derail continuation apology:

you should check this out.

http://rikaisama.sourceforge.net/

Unfortunately I`m viewing this at a computer in work and I can`t install anything that`s already pre-approved. So, I`m stuck using IE8.0.