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The labor shortage in Japan is at its highest in more than four decades, according to new government data. Low birth rates and an aging population have resulted in a shrinking workforce.
There are currently 1.48 jobs for every applicant, the highest figure since 1974 when fast growth drove the ratio to 1.53. The data outpaces the labor shortage peak in the early 1990s, during the country's period of economic stagnation.
[...] The analyst said the number of women and older people who have been joining the labor force has increased, as "the labor shortage is forcing companies to hire people who previously weren't looking for work."
Source: RT
[T]he number of families living on an income lower than the public welfare assistance level more than doubled in the 20 years after the asset price bubble popped in 1992, according to a study by Kensaku Tomuro of Yamagata University.
Now 16 percent of Japanese children live below the poverty line, according to Health Ministry statistics, but among single-parent families, the rate hits 55 percent. Poverty rates in Osaka are among the worst.
[...] Children of single or poor parents often are ostracized in their communities, Tokumaru said, noting that other parents do not want their children playing with children from a "bad house."
Source: The Washington Post
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Nuke on Wednesday May 31 2017, @12:40PM (11 children)
Perhaps this can start a move towards reducing the number of bullshit jobs like in elf-and-safety, tele-maketing, advertising, liaising with other liaison personnel, walking around waving pieces of paper, management conferences, conferences on how to organise management conferences, agencies arranging travel to management conferences, etc etc.
I'm assuming that the work scene is similar in Japan to what it is here (in UK). Most people that I see here are in job types that just did not exist say 30 years ago, including my own to some extent. I see for example as much effort put into preparing safety cases and financial cases to do something as it would take to get on and do the job itself, which still needs to be done. If this waste were cut out we could live with the standard of living we have now with a two-day working week. In fact 50 years ago sociologists were predicting just that, with, by today, robots and computers doing the grunt work. In fact the sociologists were worried about what people would do with all the extra spare time they had; the sociologists failed to predict the rise of the non-job.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 31 2017, @12:46PM (5 children)
Meanwhile in the USA what the failed to predict was half the people getting made redundant while the remaining do the work that used to be done by two or three people.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 31 2017, @01:22PM (4 children)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday May 31 2017, @01:54PM (3 children)
And OPs only 13% off and the graph is trending downwards. Note todays rate roughly equals 1977's rate and we continue to go back in time.
I'd cut OP some slack.
Its interesting that the liberated women propaganda of the 70s/80s/90s has blown thru and we're back down to 70s era participation, its just the participation isn't near 100% male anymore.
In that way in a very simplistic model the only real effect of the "women in the workforce" model is just unemployed men. There's no real change or improvement or anything other than more use of the ladies bathrooms at work. All that BS for basically nothing in the long run.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday May 31 2017, @02:42PM (1 child)
"no change"
Oh, I dunno. With more women working, and more men idle, the prison idustry is booming. And, that puts more women to work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 31 2017, @03:02PM
Suicide booth industry is going to be the next hot-tech-trend as men, now totally demoralized and destitute take it upon themselves, in a true manly fashion, to take what they perceive to be the problem out for everyone's good: themselves. Soon women will complain that there are not enough men to go around... or are they already doing this... of course they are. How to make it all about them yet again.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 01 2017, @12:16AM
Which happens to be a big amount to be off by. That gives a ratio of almost 2 workers per non worker rather than 1 worker. And note that the peak labor participation rate was just over 67%. So this is much closer to the highest labor participation rate ever compared to 50%.
We'll see what happens now that the Obama administration is out. It's worth noting that we have Boomers retiring, which is going to push the labor participation rate downward no matter what else happens.
We'll see how things go in the long run. My view is that we'll see an uptick in labor participation rates when the Boomers start dying off and China reaches near parity in wages with the US.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday May 31 2017, @01:07PM
We only work perhaps 2 days a week across a long term societal average, its just that we're all required to sit around the workplace for 40 to 100 hours per week.
Its like decriminalizing drugs. You might get the police to stop busting down your doors and shooting your kids and pets over personal use quantities of weed, but I wouldn't hold your breath on heroin legalization. Even if busting people for weed is work Americans won't do anymore, the show must go on and they'll put the same 40 hours a week into busting other product dealers around budget time and talking about sports and "training" the rest of the year.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 31 2017, @01:12PM
Wait a second. Safety may be a bullshit job sector but elves are the backbone of our Christmas economy!
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 31 2017, @05:36PM (2 children)
Perhaps this can start a move towards reducing the number of bullshit jobs like in elf-and-safety,...
I fail to see how killing more workers is going to improve a worker shortage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 01 2017, @12:36AM
Elf... shortage... I see what you did there. In other news, I'm huge in Japan.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Thursday June 01 2017, @09:07AM
I wrote "elf-and-safety" deliberately that way (hyphenated and dropped "h") to distinguish it from real safety work, which most of it is not. I would not decry real safety work if I see it.
At my work, the 'elf-and-safety people are, among other things, meant to sit (I mean sit - this is an office) with others to "observe any dangerous acts". I repeat, this is in an office FFS. They are supposed to spend a whole day sitting beside us with a notepad, and give us a score depending on the ratio of "safe acts" to "unsafe acts". What constitutes an act I ask? : One key press on the keyboard? Or writing a whole report? Anyway, as the rest of us are surly about being observed like this, the elf-and-safety guys just end up observing each other.
I reckon theirs is an ultimate non-job. The only change they ever did was to get the refills for the water dispenser changed from 10 litre bottles to 5 litre bottles, in case someone ruptured themselves changing one.