daikaka comments

That's not even a pipe dream unless you are putting something in it and smoking it.

Yes pipe dream for the expats working here, but it is easy for locals. I think it is time for you to get out of the expat bubble and take a look at the enormous wealth surrounding you. Just take a look at all the benz’s in your local neighborhood.

Not anywhere close. Pretty much every local Japanese I know draws less than 5% of their income from their official day jobs. Most local people have cash flows north of 10M per month while drawing only 400k from their official jobs. Japan have been undercounting income for their population pretty much forever.

The media need to stop pushing this false narrative of “talent shortage”. There’s no talent shortage in knowledge and office jobs. Only manual labor have talent shortage. There is a massive supply and very little demand on knowledge based jobs in Japan right now, especially since this year. If you do a posting for a office job right now, you’d be almost the only company hiring externally as majority of postings are actually internal only. There’s mass layoffs in the office jobs this year with more to come in the future.

They are being scammed big time. The locations being mentioned are some of the worst and poorest locations in all of Kanto, e.g. Kita-ku. Not to mention high risk of floods etc.

they will lose 90% of their value in 10 years.

What a misleading article. Do anyone know anyone who has gotten more than a 0.5% raise???

The only labor shortage is occurring in manual labor.

When you move to knowledge jobs, there’s an oversupply of labor and many companies are more concerned that there’s barely any attrition rather than trying to prevent people from leaving.

Japan need to solve the root cause. They need to regulate and arrest the hosts and underground idols who are the ones sinking the young girls into heavy debt

technological “progress” will also mean the majority will lose their jobs, and those who remain will get longer hours and worse pay. At least for the past decade, technological “progress” have been making lives worse and worse for the majority and is the primary driver for lower and lower wages

The other 59% of the women don’t have debt ti host clubs or underground idols but are willingly paying them.

Pretty much 99% of all prostitution and kyaba etc is due to hosts or underground idols, whose market have been growing expoentially especially since covid. Right now even mid tier kabukicho hosts makes 8-10M monthly when you consider cash payments directly from the girls for extra services, with many of the girls underage.

if the government want to fix the issue, they need to regulate the host clubs. But that is becoming more unlikely by the day as the hosts now represent the richest class in Japan who can donate a lot of money

You are going to have to break down a budget including taxes to justify this. Even small apartments outside Tokyo start at 60,000 yen.

Plenty of people are able to live in their own place at that income level. Since transportation is covered, there are typically no other major expenses. Furthermore, when you have a 200,000 monthly, it means you are also receiving summer and winter bonus as well.

550,000 needed for Tokyo is outrageous.

On the other hand if you work in NY or London etc. even if you make 150k~200k usd, you are likely still needing roommates, because rents are 3k+ and you have to cover your own transportation etc.

I told you guys, especially if you live in Tokyo you need to make at least 550 000 yen per month just to survive.

where the hell did you get that number?

Tokyo have incredibly cheap cost of living if you are not living in dead center of the city. Even at 200,000 you can at minimum afford your own place and dont need to room share.

Massively misleading article. Worker shortage ONLY exists in the low paying manual labor and services sector, i.e. under 3M jpy annual salary jobs.

There is a huge worker surplus in high paying and knowledge based white collar positions, which is experiencing mass layoffs this year, with the layoffs expected to accelerate in the next 5 years. 30% of jobs above 6M yen will be gone by 2030 would be my prediction.

1 on the list is actually a major societal problem in Japan. Many Japanese women are millions of yen in debt because of their oshi (idols, hosts, underground idols, menkon, etc.) and is the primary driver in increase in prostitution especially street prostitution and dangerous overseas prostitution trips.

Labor shortage only exists on the low-skilled jobs that pays bad.

As soon as you get to full time positions, especially high skilled positions, there's way more restructurings than openings. Wages are under enormous pressure for full time jobs above 8M JPY, the higher the skill demand, the lower the labor demand. Many people will be forced to significantly downgrade their jobs in the next few years as restructuring of the highly skilled jobs will soon hit into high gear.

Who is hiring??? Literally all of the top companies across all industries are conducting layoffs and are on hiring freezes for the foreseeable future, the job quality must suck.

Tokyo real estate is still extremely under valued when compared to similar tier cities such as London, New York, etc.

Should still have 200-300% left to grow in the next few years.

His family is likely extremely well off to allow him to get out.

In most cases the police will eventually get a confession, as police can hold people for life if needed without conviction by keep filing charges, and can easily subject people to 16 hour interrogation sessions each day and prevent them from sleeping via lights or turning off air conditioner/heating.

As confessions is the only thing is needed for conviction, and evidence is not necessary with a confession, significant amount of population in Japanese prisons is likely innocent.

Only temporary, semiconductor shortage is permanent, and it will only get worse in the future as old factories break down and no one would be willing to invest the money to build the low spec semiconductors required for autos.

Technological advances have made life much worse and much poorer in the past 20 years for the majority of people.

AI advancements will accelerate the demise of the majority.

psychiatric hospitals in Japan are essentially torture chambers. Patients are tied to bed for months at a time unable to move, and patients rarely ever leave once they are hospitalized. No treatment goes on there, hospitals just collect checks from gov and patients are like livestock to them

Need cool biz in winter as well, Japanese offices always have insane heating often set at 28C, it is often more unbearable than summers.

There are numerous articles about girls spending millions of yen on hosts. Asking for sources is just your way to escape from truth.

every guy do not do it because few people know about how lucrative it is and not many have the looks to do it

Where do you get those figures from? I have seen the trucks advertising the income of the star hosts, but how many get to that level? I would expect that the vast majority earn very little or completely fail at the job. The idea that they all become successful sounds strange.

You should understand that shop income is only a small part of a host’s actual income. Hosts provide “after” services to their regular clients, sometimes sexual, and the rates are usually above 1M in cash. In addition, there are also douhan services before the shop opens, again will get paid in cash. I know several hosts personally and 1 was even given a sports car by one of his clients. 1 is a co-worker who quit several years back and is making several hundred million a year as he is also underground idol. I also know an jav star who told me personally she have paid a certain host more than 200 million yen. There is massive demand for hosts at the moment, as it is not only for the girls themselves but also for their social standing, with hosts acting similarly like a branded handbag. As such the number of hosts making more than 100M in store sales have exploded exponentially, and keep in mind that out of store “sales” is generally 3x-5x of in store sales, an average hosts who survive the first couple of month trial period should generally expect 100M+ annual income. Keep in mind that as covid opened borders, more and more Japanese girls are going overseas to make more money, of which the majority is funneled into the host industry.

Right. Just like you can become wealthy in a year working 4 hours a week - if you just buy my get-rich-quick course. Believe the fantasy.

There is an exponential increase in demand for hosts especially since covid, and it is the driver behind the phenomenon of Japanese girls going overseas to make money and okubo park etc. People are just deluding themselves on host income now because they dont want to admit that a CEO would be making less than an average host with 6 month experience.

I'd be stunned if many hosts earn 100m Yen annually (US$750,000)

You’d be stunned that most girls are willing to pay hosts at minimum 1M a month, with just 10 or so customers a host already makes over 10 annually. That is not adding the interest payments they will receive in their later years

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I'm pretty sure the Yaks have found a few nasty ways to exploit vulnerable women into taking debts through these, "harmless bars"?

The business model is very exploitive, lets just disregard the fact that it makes women fight to be the #1 donator to their host such that many spend north of 10M a month while oftentimes not even leaving money for themselves to eat. The hosts would usually make the girls take a large tab usually 10M, then he would introduce the girl to a yamikin run by a han-gure. The yamikin will then generate 10% interest per month with part of it split to the host. The host then can introduce the girls, sometimes underage, to various night jobs. If the girls could not make enough from night jobs to pay back debt, she will be made to do higher risk jobs such as being a drug runner. This is from actual experience with the girl I know now serving 5 years for running drugs, but the han-gure group is still pressing her family to make interest payments.

Being a host is a far more lucrative career than teacher anyways. Within a year he will be making far more than 100M annually, with majority in cash, as current rates for “after” service even for low tier hosts is above 1M yen, and the industry is in exponential growth phase. Most hosts can retire by 30 with networth well north of 2000M yen.

With so much layoffs/restructuring in the skilled job market, I failed to see where there are skilled labor shortages except for the unskilled positions that locals don’t want.

With Ginza bars costing at minimum 300,000-500,000 per outing, only the Japanese natives have the assets to support such spending 2-3 times a week.

What nonsense it is. Had not a Japanese company recruited me on 20 million yen, I would not even know where Japan is. Not even if I were on 1/3 of that money would make me give a toss about Japan.

Because you are not native level Japanese speaker. Plenty of jobs offer 20M+. In fact the majority of Japanese I know in their 30s makes above that. Pretty much all of the small business owners in Tokyo makes above that. It would be rarer to find a local who is working full time to be making below that unless they are within 5 years of new grad,

The issue is that most here foreigners who dont have native japanese level to take native Japan jobs and assume pay in Japan is low. Full time pay for Japan locals is extremely high once you consider that many companies pay for both rent and transportation. This is why Japanese locals never bat an eye spending 10,000-20,000 per person dinners. May be there are 10% or so poor people, but the Japanese I know, some as young as 28-29 are making 30M-40M annually with 15-20M base salaries. Furthermore most also have enormous assets paying high investment incomes as well, with many owning past 100+ properties both residental and commercial. The fact is 20M salary income is at most middle-upper class.