50.1% of Japanese companies suffering from labor shortage: survey

If you pay a decent wage give holidays, time off that is legally mandated but ignored. These companies might attract staff that see a part time job as a better option. Might not have stability but time to relax without all the pressure a full time job in Japan entails.

Pay decent salaries and give holiday entitlements!

Ever been to hello work and search for a job and it said you can only apply if your at the age of 18 -35. Lift the age limitation/discrimination and problem solved.

Let me fix it:

"More than 50% of companies are refusing to hire staff as regular workers. Yet they have the audacity to claim they are at loss as to the reason they are unable to secure enough staff. "

Double the minimum wage to catch up with with the rest of the west.

The hiring/recruitment system in Japan is ridiculously rigid, with graduates hired en-mass according to a strict calendar schedule. It also ignores the fact that the labor market is a dynamic market that operates on supply and demand.

These employers have colluded to create the pain they are complaining about.

50.1% of Japanese companies suffering from labor shortage

What usually happened those companies won't change employee wages to attract candidate, while complaining about shortage. Government also don't have any clear policy for this.

 caused by the aging population 

Just like this one government provide no clear policy, just expect it will fixed by itself.

A total 30.4 percent of businesses also said there was a shortage of nonregular workers. Eateries and the hospitality sector, which traditionally have higher ratios of nonregular workers, were particularly hard hit at 77.3 percent and 62.3 percent, respectively.

Japan Inc.; Here is a zero-hour, minimum wage, irregular shift working contract that can be unpaid furloughed at any time.

Why is there a shortage of workers???

For full-time employees, the crunch was most notably felt by the information services sector at 71.3 percent, followed by recruitment at 65.0 percent, and maintenance and security industries at 64.6 percent.

Not enough recruiters and not enough labor. Seems you could solve a large part of the problem by cutting out the recruiting middlemen, whose skills at vetting staff are often shown to be mostly useless.

Schools, from elementary to University, are having a harder time finding part-time teachers. Pay is low compared to the amount of work involved, and since many schools don't want to offer tenure, there is no job security. I've seen many talented young teachers move on after a few years because there is no perceivable future. Many schools also force a retirement at age 60-62 respectively with only those in upper administration able to continue to 65. Even retired teachers who continue to teach as part-time are often limited to the age of 65. It's ridiculous to waste years of knowledge and experience because of age.

Cricky

"If you pay a decent wage give holidays, time off that is legally mandated but ignored".

Absolutely correct! There is the answer to their staffing shortage.

Immigrant workers with much needed skills are not interested in working in Japan.

How about directly hiring haken staff who have been busting their $$$ for your company? Let's run companies like Recruit out of business who exploit the labor market!

My Local Lawson, Ino, kochi 850 yen per hour, basic.

That is not a living wage by any stretch of the Imagination.

The staff work there socks off.

Japan work visa is ¥3,000 single entry. ¥6,000 multiple entry.

US visa is ¥25,000 to ¥400,000.

Was watching "Mr. Sunday" the TV news program and they were highlighting young Japanese who have left to go work in Australia. Even though the cost of living is very high, they were making so much more money than they could in Japan, and seemed to have a much better quality of life. If Japan Inc. doesn't get it's head out of it a$$, there is going to be a bigger rush to leave and work elsewhere!

still there is so much restriction on the working Visa.

Pay more. If you cant afford it, then close.

I'm looking for a job in Japan right now. My wife wants to raise our baby here... If there really were that many companies desperate for work, you'd think I'd find something reasonable with which I I'd be able to support a family.

They may be lacking the staff they desire, but they certainly aren't trying very hard to find new employees. Wages are gutter trash, hours are insane, holidays non-existent in the first year. Even positions that require experience start with wages equivalent to a minimum wage 40 hour a week job in Texas... Yet, the hours are longer.

Hoping a golden opportunity pops out and hits me in the eye right now. Unlikely.

Anybody looking for a job right now should take full advantage of the situation - shop around, pit them against each other, push them for more pay, more holidays and shorter hours. Nobody should have any sympathy for these companies whatsoever after decades of reducing wages and working standards and failure to keep up with their international competitors - they just assumed that whatever worked in the past would work forever.

Was watching "Mr. Sunday" the TV news program and they were highlighting young Japanese who have left to go work in Australia. Even though the cost of living is very high, they were making so much more money than they could in Japan, and seemed to have a much better quality of life. If Japan Inc. doesn't get it's head out of it a$, there is going to be a bigger rush to leave and work elsewhere!

I watched that too, initially curious about the 「ニッポン人が海外出稼ぎに？」(Japanese economic immigrants?) banner on top. It wasnt clickbait. The japanese nurse was getting some ¥800,000 ~ ¥900,000yen in Australia doing the same job with much less stress than while working in a japanese hospital getting below ¥400,000yen.

Reality is: even the japanese are fed up with the japanese system.

The senpai kouhai is absurdly outdated for 2022. You have to literally "watch your language" while speaking to someone 1 year older in your company.

I'm in the Aged population (50+), but willing to work... so don't please, blame everything upon me !

It's the younger generation who think we older folk cant work hard as them.. and are afraid of telling us what to do because we are older than them...

Ageism is like Racism.

You people are lacking context - Japan is an easy country to get a working visa for. If you have a degree, and a job lined up, the paperwork is straightforward and affordable. It's thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars in other first-world countries, with stipulations such as age and linguistic proficiency, salary etc.

Hire International People. Easy...

Japanese companies employ many part time employees so they do not have to pay benefits and/or real wages. Japanese companies do not pay a salary that is conducive to international norms. Japanese companies have a work culture that is at best, antiquated. Power harassment is thundering through the offices while the rich get richer and the staff get poorer. So when Japanese companies complain that they cannot find new employees, take a look at what you are offering. Slave wages in a cubicle of incarceration.

No thanks.

Everyone has this right, cry when you have massive wage inflation, otherwise you are a cartel. Transparently obvious. A functional economy would bid up wages, and push inflation.

Double the minimum wage to catch up with with the rest of the west.

Raising the minimum wage is not the answer alone, in fact, it's only a small part of the problem. Just raising the minimum wage does not ensure stability. People want stability, better quality of working conditions, AND wages.

Raising the minimum wage would also cause problems for far too many businesses as then they would have to raise their prices as well, as the majority of the minimum waged positions are in service related jobs, which already have low profit margins.

Anybody looking for a job right now should take full advantage of the situation - shop around, pit them against each other, push them for more pay, more holidays and shorter hours.

Easier said than done when they offer you a position and only give you a day or so to decide. They tell you they have others in line that are waiting and how often are you also being offered a position from another company at the exact same time? They aren't going to give you more holidays than anyone else at the company or a higher wage than the last guy they hired.

A Visa here only costs the price of Revenue Stamps. My transition to PR cost 8000 yen.

I watched that too, initially curious about the 「ニッポン人が海外出稼ぎに？」(Japanese economic immigrants?) banner on top. It wasnt clickbait. The japanese nurse was getting some ¥800,000 ~ ¥900,000yen in Australia doing the same job with much less stress than while working in a japanese hospital getting below ¥400,000yen.

I only glanced at the program, but yes, this should be a huge wakeup call to people out there. An ageing country like Japan cannot afford to lose frontline workers.

I'm a freelancer and I don't tell people how much I make on average per day. We're not especially well-off, I cannot afford to take my family on European-style overseas holidays or buy our cars new, for example, but if I told people I won't do jobs that pay 30,000 yen a day because it's too low, I can guarantee that would cause animosity. The actual cost of raising our three kids would be dismissed as irrelevant to this discussion. Supposing I did do it, 30,000 a day 20 days a month is only seven million yen a year, under 50k USD, with no benefits and no job security. That's for professional white collar work. Japan has far too many people out there who insist that 1200 a hour is somehow generous. They also insist it should be recognized as such with no recourse to the actual cost of living.

StrangerlandToday  08:22 am JST

You people are lacking context - Japan is an easy country to get a working visa for. If you have a degree, and a job lined up, the paperwork is straightforward and affordable. It's thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars in other first-world countries, with stipulations such as age and linguistic proficiency, salary etc.

You're right to the extent of getting a visa. The problem when people get here is the quality of jobs available. They're OK for the short term, but for long-term career building there are plenty of other countries that are more attractive.

That said, once here, there are plenty of opportunities to start a business for people that way inclined.

US Work Visa should be ¥25,000 to ¥40,000.

@Strangerland

Who wants to work for low wages?No career prospects in a dead end job in a tiny 1DK?! ( except stock brokers in Tokyo)

Labor shortage, total BS, what there is a shortage of is livable wages with decent conditions, until J companies provide that they deserve all the labor resistance they get

@kohakuebisu

I'm rich too, but more in terms of time.

When I was young and just fresh off the boat, I gladly worked a full day in quite a range of jobs (none paying above 15,000 day) from movings to long distance moto courier and also my favorite job: 遺品整理, furniture/personal belongings removal from dead people's houses while scavenging through the place for whatever I could use/sell. It was more than enough to pay the bills but definitely not a liveable wage if you have a family. Not, the very minimum reward I accept to leave the house is 30.000yen (if the job takes less than an hour), and above 70.000 to leave my wife and kid @ home to go to work on a saturday. Definitely not rich at all, but at least I'm out of the rat race for good.

My dream is to work in a Japanese company with their amazing Japanese working culture... said absolutely no one ever :D

I actually dreamed about working and living in Japan when I was a teenager, but those were pre-Youtube ages when all you had were Japan Foundation VHS tapes that only showed japanese offices/streets full with cheeful, positive, happy japanese people greeting each other with bows and smiles.

 would love a job that pays 30 k a day !!

Good luck finding one, especially if you want to have three kids like us. Five mouths, two cars, and a twenty year mortgage. When the mortgage ends, the kids will be in college and we'll be paying for that and/or living expenses instead. Basically, another 10 years to go.

fwiw, in the UK, a "minimum acceptable standard of living" for a couple with two kids is now said to cost over 4000 GBP a month, about 8 million yen a year. Plenty of families won't earn this, which is why there are stories about parents not eating, rationing showers, cooking in the microwave not the oven, etc. If you earn 50k in the UK on a single salary, they'll cut your child benefit. As if 50k makes you high flyer.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61501778

People in Japan really need to get out of this mindset where 1200 yen an hour is good, possibly because years ago, they worked in Mos Burger for 900 yen an hour as a carefree highschooler living at home. It doesn't go very far for adults who have to pay bills.

Just on the visa one, getting my wife a UK spouse visa would take over 10 million yen cash in the bank (its close to 70k GBP due to our kids) and a small fortune in fees, easily over one million yen. It's 300,000 yen just for the initial application and 400,000 yen as prepayment for the NHS.

how about to admit that most of jobs offered are low-end -paid jobs,often without any social security/shakai hoken/?

A lot of eikaiwa schools, ALT dispatch companies were not paying shakai hoken also. Now they have changed the labor laws. Some have to now. It was all about cost costing. The pension agency had to do something about it because many employees were not paying into the pension scheme. It's a scheme in crisis with a growing elderly population and many employees not paying into it because it is unaffordable due to the low wages being paid.

Salaries in Japan are quite low,not even in the top 20s.and when you factor in coat of commodities,life is so miserable for most people here.

My Japanese friend is now looking for a visa to go and work as a truck driver abroad.He doesn't speak English though but he's determine d to go.

The sector that's hurting the most is the information sector? Of course, why should the young IT folks march into work for low wages when they can work at home for a foreign company with better wages and working conditions?

I felt this immediately upon coming to Japan in 2008.

Absolutely everywhere I went for a quick job as part time (from a day to a week) people asked me to stay and join the team to work in the company forever. Yeah. As if I'd dedicate my life working in a moving company for the rest of my life...

Japanese people really enjoy to have a white face around for looks

You people are lacking context - Japan is an easy country to get a working visa for. If you have a degree, and a job lined up, the paperwork is straightforward and affordable. It's thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars in other first-world countries, with stipulations such as age and linguistic proficiency, salary etc.

Absolutely agree!

@kohakuebisu

It's 50K GBP in Cash in the Bank or equivalent in assets, and an annual income of 18.5K GBP for spouse visa, plus you will need to pay an upfront payment for her NHS cover (~2.5k) and not draw upon DWP payments. After 5 years she can apply for Naturalization... for a lot of people like yourself, the return to the UK can inevitably lead to one member of the Family being left behind ... Something that's not often talked about.

Unfortunately this all started after certain people of Indian ethnicity, started bringing in their whole extended family members via Ireland, since then, it's become a lot harder to return the UK with a non-EEC partner. It's all about money, how much you have makes all the difference, you've only got to look at the current PM's wife as proof of that.

The UK, is as you said, a horrendous place to work on any salary less than 30K, (50K if in London) people are starving themselves in order to afford other things - such as electricity for heating. The UK is heading towards 3rd World status, with a minority of Rich living well, whilst the majority suffer - a bit like how things were a couple of Hundred years ago - exemplified by the Poldark Series...

The biggest reason for the shortage that was left out of the survey and not being talked about anywhere is LOW WAGES!! These companies made huge profits but don't want to pay a decent wage.

Just over half of companies in Japan are suffering from a shortage of full-time employees as the country's labor crunch, caused by the aging population but temporarily eased due to the pandemic-induced economic slowdown, is compounded by recovering economic activities, a recent survey found.

Had a chance to work full-time for a mutlti-nation Japanese company in Japan. Decided against it due to many factors.

Long commute. Most of the people there had 4+ hr commutes each way.

Long hours. Whenever I was working there, seemed they did 12+ hrs a day, sometimes 15+.

Bosses who were unkind towards everyone, except their golden boy. They way they spoke to women, I would never be able to get used to it.

Every time I worked there (2 weeks at a time), I'd lose 10 lbs. I didn't need to lose any weight and was hungry all the time. All the workers would choke down food in 15 minutes at the corporate cafeteria for lunch and dinner. No joy in that.

I left a fairly high paying job here over a 45 min commute. That was too long. Took a job for 5% less pay within 10 minutes of the house with 50% telecommuting expected, not just allowed. There was no expectation that anyone would stay longer than necessary. The CEO would walk around at 1730 and tell people to leave, get home, be with their families, except when there was a critical deadline. Since we each set the schedules, unrealistic deadlines were 100% our fault.

I suppose it depends on the sort of job, but there have been studies that show productivity suffers when people continuously work more than 50 hrs/wk. It isn't just bad for productivity, it is bad for health: https://www.inc.com/tom-popomaronis/science-says-you-shouldnt-work-more-than-this-number-of-hours-a-day.html

@kohakuebisu won't take a job that pays under ¥30,000 a day?!

I would love a job that pays 30 k a day !!

Unbelievable!

when the Vietnamese become useless and will complain about working conditions, japan will send them back to their country to wipe out the violation of rights.

It's not a labor shortage, it's a slavery shortage. The govt is so oblivious to the Pawahara, low wage, strict rules and long hours of work we have to go through and also the mental illness that comes with it. So many youth are planning to flee from Japan.

how about to admit that most of jobs offered are low-end -paid jobs,often without any social security/shakai hoken/?

same thing in many countries around the world right now...

interesting because it seems like 100% of employees are experiencing wage theft

My dream is to work in a Japanese company with their amazing Japanese working culture... said absolutely no one ever :D

There are kids in Los Angeles making $23.00 working retail at the mall.

Give me a break Japan.

Old people are selfish and afraid of youth.

23.00 an hour

What do they expect when they work people literally to death in some cases (so much so that the Japanese word "karoshi" has fond its way into English dictionaries with no English equivalent), demand the government allow unpaid overtime, and more? And now Japan is losing young people to developing nations that have better pay and care more for their employees, and less of those nations' peoples are bothering to come here.

No one wants to be a wage slave anymore Japan. Adapt and win.

like In Australian a person working at 7/11 get the minimum wage of $22 + 10% super a hour on top. What does a convenient shop worker get in. Japan less then 1000 yen an hour + 0 giant different. Young Japanese would doing themselves a crime if you work for that.

Japan is slowly aging and decaying economically.

Sad state of affairs!

In other words,-in Japan- too many jobs not enough people. Nice problem to have. In other countries, it is too many people not enough jobs. Well done Japan!

no its too many low paying jobs, not enough people willing to be a slave to that, fixed it for you

I’ve heard this all before. The companies complain about no staff but they work their staff into the ground and won’t pay them a decent salary or give them a decent contract. Let’s not forget that 60% of the workforce are on low-paying, part time or short term contracts with no security or benefits. Then, you have to consider the chain of command. The higher up the chain you go the more money they make and the less work they do.

I can’t understand why there isn’t a throng of people frothing at the bit to get a job that pays ¥1200 an hour and you are expected to work 24/7 on call. Bwahaha!

What a nonsense. If you make the Japanese employees really work instead of having a name card and a desk, all the major corporations can work with 25 % of the current staff levels.

japan is not productive, not efficient and not competitive.

@Strangerland

Who wants to work for low wages?No career prospects in a dead end job in a tiny 1DK?! ( except stock brokers in Tokyo)

Huh? What does this have to do with my post?

still there is so much restriction on the working Visa.

Yes, I just heard about an Australian Youtuber who was promoting tourism in Japan got rejected for not applying for the "right" work visa. What a joke immigration Japan is.

the population is so old that there is not enough young people to do the dirty work. Recently I saw a group of naive Vietnamese welding a public water pipe nearby. Japanese became picky and lazy.

its nothing new for me since many of us knows about recent japanese wages.

living costs went high and people are making same or even less/many/so yes people expect to make more money to be able to pay higher living costs.

if company wants secure and stable staff need offer better salaries and social benefits and Japan have to live in reality of 2022 not in reality of 70 or 80ies...pay good staff will work good.pay bad staff will leave and will be never back.

StrangerlandToday  08:22 am JST

You people are lacking context - Japan is an easy country to get a working visa for. If you have a degree, and a job lined up, the paperwork is straightforward and affordable. It's thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars in other first-world countries, with stipulations such as age and linguistic proficiency, salary etc.

In a first world country like the USA a working visa costs less than $200.

They don’t even search at all for employees. Or does anybody of you now have a letter box full of their splendid job offers or has anyone seen a TV commercial or such, where they promote themselves and invite for applications? Maybe a few recruiters do, but you usually won’t work there directly and therefore get no direct offer, explaining what to expect or what’s on offer. The very most younger people won’t write thousands of unanswered applications on full time jobs anymore and they also won’t drive through all streets in the neighborhood to look for some offers printed at the factory gates or shop’s entrance doors. In addition they now know, that they can’t marry , build a house , hav3 many children etc at those low minimum wages or slightly above. Maybe it’s indeed more fun for them, instead of a job search to only look at their smartphones 24/7 or create some stupid TikToks.

50.1% of Japanese companies suffering from labor shortage: survey

In other words,-in Japan- too many jobs not enough people. Nice problem to have. In other countries, it is too many people not enough jobs. Well done Japan!

It’s ok, robots will replace the robots. AI will step in very soon and solve all of these problems.