New York Times February 3, 1999
In Japan, From a Lifetime Job to No Job at All
STEPHANIE STROM
TOKYO, Feb. 2 -- Last June, Takaharu Akimoto's boss politely and
apologetically asked him to quit his job as a production manager at the
Shoshiba Manufacturing Company, a midsized engine parts maker affiliated
with the beleaguered Nissan Motor Company.
'I said to myself, 'Impossible!' '' Mr. Akimoto recalled. ''I told him I
didn't want to quit, please let me stay longer.''
But in today's Japan, the impossible has become possible, and in
December, seven years shy of his retirement, Mr. Akimoto ''quit'' and joined
the 2.91 million other Japanese who are officially looking for a job.
''This is the worst period of my life,'' he said. ''I've had some serious
setbacks before, but this is totally different.''
Japan is suffering its highest rate of unemployment, 4.1 percent, since
the Government started keeping statistics in 1949. Almost twice as many
people are looking for jobs as there are job openings, and many of the
available positions are in low-paying, unskilled areas.
That strikes a blow to the heart of Japan's self-image, and the whole
country is reeling. Although Japan's unemployment is low compared with the
rate in many other countries, full employment, or close to it, is a key
clause in the social contract that has kept the public complacent and one
political party in power almost consistently since World War II. Now, for
the first time since the lean years after Japan's defeat in the war, most
people here know someone who is out of a job -- and fear that they could be
next.
In addition to the challenge of finding work, the jobless battle shame
and despair. Mr. Akimoto, for instance, kept his job loss a secret from his
wife for a week. ''I was at a loss as to how we would survive,'' he said.
The humiliation sometimes flares into anger, an emotion rarely on public
display in Japan. An irate job seeker waved his fist in the face of a
television reporter filming at one branch of the Government employment
agency known as Hello! Work, accusing the reporter of invading his privacy
and seeking to capitalize on his woes. Job seekers at another branch were
more subdued: they merely turned their faces away the instant they saw a
camera.
''Japanese people are ashamed to be unemployed,'' said Masahide Naito,
who is in charge of job seekers over 45 at the Iidabashi branch of Hello!
Work. ''It's an embarrassment, something that you hide.''
The Japanese employment system, heavy on lifetime loyalty guaranteed by
seniority-based pay, has been crumbling since 1993, when a slew of corporate
titans started campaigns to trim their work forces.
But that erosion moved at the pace of molasses compared with what
happened last year, when the unemployment rate jumped an alarming
seven-tenths of a percent, to the 4.1 percent. Compounding the problem,
companies struggling to avoid layoffs cut wages, which fell 6.8 percent in
December, the worst decline on record.
From Smugly Secure To Life on the Edge
These statistics have rocked the psyche of a nation that has previously
regarded itself as blessedly immune from the economic woes suffered by other
developed countries.
''I had been hearing about such things on television, but now I'm hearing
these stories directly from my classmates, and I'm hearing not just from one
but from many,'' said Hisako Aoyama, one of three women in a class of 28
studying janitorial services at the Tokyo Metropolitan Shinagawa Technical
College, a vocational school financed by the city government.
It is a deeply unsettling experience for most Japanese, particularly the
men over 45 who are being forced en masse out of companies they joined as
college graduates, their high salaries and looming lump-sum retirement
payments an obvious target for corporate cost-cutters.
''At 51, I'm at a time of change in my life,'' said Shigeru Kikuya, a
classmate of Mrs. Aoyama's who lost his job as a procurement officer in a
factory last March. ''The only thing I can do is persevere and hope I can
turn my life around.''
But the prospects of landing a job for most men his age are slim at best,
according to officials at Hello! Work.
After Mr. Akimoto, the former Shoshiba manager, finally told his wife of
his plight, she urged him to seek help from the Tokyo Managers' Union, a
group set up four years ago to represent middle managers who are not union
members. With that group's help, he did manage to be restored to his job for
another five months.
A lifetime employee of Shoshiba whose salary had increased in lock step
with his seniority, Mr. Akimoto had expected to work at the company until he
retired at age 60, and received a fat, lump-sum payment to finance his
retirement. But with Nissan fighting for its life, Mr. Akimoto's company
could no longer afford to keep him on, or even to find him a job at a
smaller Nissan affiliate, as it would have done in the past.
''I am angry,'' he said. ''But I don't know where to direct my anger. The
company did try to help me find another job at least.''
The only jobs he has found so far are as a driver or as the man who waves
a light baton at construction sites to direct traffic. He would earn less
than the unemployment benefits he receives, but those will run out in late
March unless he enrolls in a job training course.
''Right now, rather than immediately taking a job as a driver, I would
like to continue to look for awhile,'' Mr. Akimoto said. ''But there is no
question that my income will be less than half what I was earning.''
Subsidies Mask Full Extent of Pain
Fearful of the social costs that may accompany frustration of the sort
Mr. Akimoto is experiencing, the Government goes to great lengths to try to
keep unemployment figures from rising, providing generous public subsidies
to companies to keep workers on their payrolls.
''There is so-called invisible unemployment in corporations today that
may become visible in the future, in which case the rate will become much
higher than it is now,'' warned Akira Amari, the Labor Minister, at a recent
press gathering.
Mr. Amari refused to make any estimates about what the real level would
be. ''These kinds of figures can drive up the insecurity of the Japanese
consumer, so, excuse me, I cannot say what the figures are,'' he said.
''It's my corporate secret.''
It is no secret, though, that the need to create jobs provides much of
the impetus behind the vast sums of money the Government has spent on public
works during the last several years. Although the Government has spent
upward of $800 billion to stimulate economic activity, the unemployment rate
has climbed steadily.
''Just after the measures are implemented, the number of jobs that comes
open increases a little,'' said Kazuaki Mishima, an official at the Hello!
Work office in Iidabashi. ''But the effect doesn't last long. The measures
don't really have that much impact.'' And while he hesitates to say it, Mr.
Mishima believes unemployment will continue to increase.
Despite the record unemployment rate, what is remarkable is that so many
workers have retained their jobs. Automobile production dropped more than 8
percent last year, for instance, and yet it is rare to hear of an unemployed
auto worker.
Reducing the head count is often the last resort for struggling
companies. The obligation binding employer to employee is still strong here
-- so strong that in some cases, business owners have committed suicide so
that their life insurance premiums can be used to pay workers and creditors.
The Honda Motor Company halted production at its plant in Thailand last
year but has kept workers on the payroll, even flying some managers to Japan
for three-month training courses at its factories here.
And the Mitsubishi Corporation encourages marginal workers to take a year
off for retraining at its expense, after which they can either find work
elsewhere or come back to the company. ''We cannot restructure in the U.S.
way,'' said Minoru Makihara, the chairman of Mitsubishi and an outspoken
proponent of greater labor mobility in Japan. ''The Japanese way of insuring
the way of life and living is a very respectable thing.''
He noted that there are shortages of labor in important areas of the
economy, like computer technology. ''We're very good at making computers but
not so good at using them,'' he said. ''This is a highly educated
population. In six months, we could produce a whole new corps of people who
would be in great demand.''
Masue Otani is someone who lost out to a computer. After working seven
years in the mail room at the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, she
left her job in part because some of her work was being computerized and
because she felt unable to operate a computer. ''Because I cannot use a
computer, I'm afraid I cannot find a job,'' she said as she scanned the job
offerings at the Hello! Work office. ''Every available job asks for someone
who can use a computer.''
Mrs. Otani, whose husband cannot work because of a chronic stomach
problem that periodically puts him in the hospital, is making ends meet with
her unemployment insurance, and her sons, who live at home, give her a
portion of their incomes. ''It's very difficult and frightening,'' she said.
''I don't know what will happen to us.''
Health Care? Hotels? A Rush to Retrain
Many people are turning to vocational schools for retraining, generating
an explosion in demand for courses in gardening, home health care and hotel
and restaurant services, among others.
At the Tokyo Metropolitan Shinagawa Technical College, 113 people applied
for a class in business accounting that had room for 15 students. A class on
home health care, a burgeoning business in Japan, where the population is
aging, was had 10 times as many applicants as students.
The college is unlikely to expand to meet the demand, however. The bulk
of its budget comes from the Tokyo metropolitan government, which is
effectively bankrupt.
The mix of students has changed markedly in the last year, said Naomitsu
Kondo, the school's director. ''We've always had some new college graduates
seeking training, but recently there has been a big influx of people coming
in because of restructuring,'' he said.
Takeshi Kono is one of the new breed of students. Now 58, Mr. Kono has lost
two jobs to restructuring in the last three years. For much of his working
life, he was an employee of a major supermarket chain, most recently the
director of building security and safety. He lost that job a couple of years
ago and began driving a delivery truck for a smaller supermarket company.
That job, too, evaporated, and now Mr. Kono is learning how to use a mop to
put a high gloss shine on linoleum floors and how to dispose of garbage that
has to be separated for recycling most efficiently.
''I found out that my experience is totally useless in getting a job,'' he
said. ''There seem to be a lot of positions available cleaning office
buildings after hours, so I'm taking this class.''
Mr. Kono expects to earn about one-third of his previous income. He no
longer goes fishing and hiking with his friends, although he has scraped
together enough money to send his daughter to college.
''Luckily, I do not have a mortgage loan anymore,'' he said. ''If I was
still paying a mortgage, life would be, well, extremely difficult.''
For all his hard work and effort, Mr. Kono may never find work again. As of
last December, only 25 percent of the school's March graduates had found a
job -- and men over 45, whose former salaries were high, and who have
families to support, have extremely limited opportunities. At the Hello!
Work office in Iidabashi recently, there were only four new listings of jobs
for men over 45, while the bulletin board featuring new listings for women
under 35, a group that is also marked by high unemployment, is covered with
job descriptions.
Mr. Kikuya, Mr. Kono's classmate, has been out of work since March, but he
still finds his situation incomprehensible. He looked for months for another
clerical job where he could make use of his experience administering a
mid-sized machine tools manufacturer but found nothing.
''Maybe people will say I was too optimistic,'' Mr. Kikuya said. ''I
expected it to be difficult, but I never expected it to be impossible.'' He
compared the traditional Japanese employment system to sitting in a tub of
lukewarm water, a favorite metaphor here for describing a life that is not
too comfortable but not unpleasant, either.
But he was thrown out of the tub, and feels colder leaving a tub of lukewarm
water than one filled with scalding water. ''If you are in lukewarm water,''
he said, ''you are lulled into ignorance.''
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