12% of Japan convenience stores don't open 24 hours due to labor shortage

Pay more and you’ll get all the staff you want.

Pay more and you’ll get all the staff you want.

That's really unthinkable for Japan Inc.

Anyone who go to random convenient store in big cities, chance that customer will face with foreign staff from Nepal, Vietnam or China. Japan Inc love cheap labor.

Does 24/7 service make sense in Japan's depopulated regions?

Some stores have accelerated the introduction of unmanned cash registers to cope with the intensifying labor shortage.

The 'labor shortage ' is pure LDP/Japan Inc. Combine fluff.

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Some stores have accelerated the introduction of unmanned cash registers to cope with the intensifying labor shortage.

The 'labor shortage ' is pure LDP/Japan Inc. Combine fluff.

This sentence is the only one that matters.

Is it cheaper to hire a shrinking number of students, housewives, seniors for minimum wages?

Or allow more foreign students immigrants?

Or have to install Amazon Go style unmanned stores?

The LSC race to the bottom for the non-rentier.

Previous post cut off, no edit function natch

Just 12%..

No drama here..

There is no labor shortage in Japan.

Pay living wages, watch the “shortage” miraculously disappear.

Convenient stores are franchise shops and in rural areas, many do close at night, this is without any connection with the labor shortage. It does just make no sense to leave that stores open and I am sure some were still opened more or less due to the contract with the parent company.

It is always easy to use the excuse of labor shortage while nobody is actually going to the store in the middle of the night

You mean people don't want to flip their waking schedules to go make $6.45 an hour?!?!

Convenient stores are franchise shops and in rural areas, many do close at night, this is without any connection with the labor shortage. It does just make no sense to leave that stores open and I am sure some were still opened more or less due to the contract with the parent company.

Outside of busy city locations, why would any of these stores stay open? It makes 0 business sense.

Economic reasons like falling consumer demand at late hours drives these decisions.

Give people who work in these places a chance at a normal life .

If you think vending machines are a waste of electricity, lighting a convenience store to 70 zillion lumens is going to use a whole lot more.

As others are stating, there is no "Labor shortage" in Japan. It is a myth.

If these convenience store chains upped their salaries to cashiers from ~¥1100 ($7) / hour to ¥2000/hr ($13) the positions would fill rapidly.

These businesses are just looking for excuses to keep pay rock bottom - and keep importing foreign guest workers and pay them peanuts.

Good friend worked over 10 years at busy downtown conbini.

After years of training/experience she was the go-to-expert for all of the services offered and troubleshooter if problems arose.

She wanted more liberal shift freedom for herself and a little more money than ￥950/hr.

Bombastic boss said no and she played his bluff and quit - leaving him in the lurch big time.

Now she works at a nearby supermarket with more flexible hours, less stress and more money ￥1,350/hr.

Thickheads just don't get it - this was a busy 24 hr central store with a huge worker / shopper clientele, and the boss didn't have the nous to see the writing on the wall.

In parts of Tokyo, you'll find 3 of them within 100m of each other. Why not set up a rota?

Simple solution: As part of the employees' training from management and/or head office, send some of the staff to those locations that are understaffed. They can keep in touch with their customers and staff from different locations and learn what services and products caters to them. From Marketing and Human Resources 101.

Most, if not all of these 12 percenters are in the countryside, so...........

Be honest, most folks in the coutryside are in bed by 10 p.m. anyway, so it makes sense.

Are there no out-of-work robots?

There's too many of them. Perhaps that's why?

There's at least 20 within a 15 minute walk near me.

Outside of busy city locations, why would any of these stores stay open? It makes 0 business sense.

That is exactly when the convenience comes into play. Of course all other stores too don't make a business sense outside of rush hours in the morning and evening and during lunch time. Those three intervals served let's say 2 hrs each, that alone would make already 95% of all shopping business deals in those six hours summed up, I guess. It's by far not unique to convenience stores that they cover much more time frames than really needed. It's a bit different for many stores and supermarkets during weekends, frequented more constantly by general public and also different for department stores which are more frequented by wealthy pensioners between 10am and 3pm or so. But in general there is still a big potential to cut all business hours due to future lacks of workforce or logistics capacity.

”… and declining late-night demand.”

Recently went into my local convenience store late and night to find there were no staff inside the store and signs saying just use the self check-out. One other "customer" was there reading a manga.

No staff probably means no customers, no problems here…

Recently went into my local convenience store late and night to find there were no staff inside the store and signs saying just use the self check-out. One other "customer" was there reading a manga.

Imagine that in Baltimore or Detroit!

There is a reason it's called "7-11". The original name meant they were open from 7am to 11pm.

To be honest, we don’t really need every shop to be open 24 hours. Maybe late, but 24 hours is a bit much.

It should 100% during certain times, say 1AM to 5AM. How many customers during this period? It is a huge loss of energy at a time when Japan face a big energy issue.

@David Brent True there is no labor shortage I agree pay a decent wage but a konbini job is not one where one should expect to retire from with life long benefits. Look at the fast food restaurants in the US the market has got out of control. Those types of jobs were first thought of as being for high schoolers and part-time work. Once the kids started going off to college the US heard the same cry that the young kids did not want to work, therefore you had a influx of newcomers come immigrants taking those jobs. Over time they complained for better wages and insurance and better benefits as they kept the jobs as careers. Going forward California fast food restaurants McDonald's, Burger King are now paying their employees $20.00 and hour because of this change, I am sure this will drive up the minimum wage across the country. I agree there is no labor shortage but I do think it is a smoke screen for an excuse to subliminally make people think the country needs to open up to out siders because it they can't get the workers they need to stay in business and those who do except the positions are not Japanese, but others.

There is no labor shortage in Japan.

Pay living wages, watch the “shortage” miraculously disapp

kaimycahlMay 7 10:09 pm JST

So you admit that fast food jobs are terrible in terms of pay but lament that they are being taken over by immigrants? I, for one, prefer such businesses to have long hours and be open. The era when "those types of jobs were first thought of as being for high schoolers and part-time work", was probably also an era of higher birthrates.

Back in the days there were no convenience stores. Just adjust to reality. Shop in advance.