It's generally in their corporate DNA to make very effort possible to avoid making redundancies, and where everyone in the company embraces the mentality that 'all of us are in this together' during tough times.

May have been true before about 1990, when it was 'jobs for life' in Japan. Now, maybe less so.

One of the more clueless statements I've heard.

Not anymore, when more than 50% of employees are part-time or contract workers. Oxford Economics should update itself on current working conditions and employee contracts in Japan. Also, many of these large blue-chip 'employee for life' companies utilise a network of sub-companies, often in the same group, and these workers are laid off first, with their jobs bought back 'in-house'.