LABOUR-JAPAN: Middle-aged Male Workers Lost in New Job Market

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Sep 19 2001 (IPS) - Work Net, one of several new recruitment companies springing up across Japan these days, is inundated with applicants — most of them middle-aged men.

“We have more than a 150 clients already, almost all of them middle-aged men who have lost their jobs or are on the verge of losing them,” says Shitomu Takahashi, owner of the small company that counsels and finds new jobs for Japan’s growing number of unemployed.

Japan’s unemployment rate climbed to a record 5 percent in July and is predicted to worsen as more companies announce layoffs in drastic restructuring efforts.

The worst hit are male workers between the ages of 45 and 60, many of whom have spent almost all their working years in one company.

“This group (of senior workers) also represents the saddest category in the unemployment scene because they have the lowest chance of finding new employment,” explains Takahashi, who himself was a company employee until he quit to start the recruitment firm.

He says Japan’s middle management cannot cope with new demands of the changing labour market.

According to the Labour Ministry, more than 800,000 workers, 80 percent of them middle-aged men, have not been able to get new jobs for more than a year now.

Some of the reasons behind this may be seen in a recent remark by Kunio Nakamura, president of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. He said his company did not need middle-aged workers whose minds were too slow to adapt to new information technology — remarks that created headlines in Japan.

The comment was particularly shocking as it came from Matsushita, a company that has been a pioneer in the country’s culture of lifetime employment. In fact, the company won praise when its management refused to lay off workers even during the great depression in Japan in the 1920s.

Lifetime employment, where employees were assured of a job in the company until they retired, has been regarded as the backbone of Japan’s rapid economic success after World War II.

But global competition and a long economic recession changed all that.

Takahashi is focusing on helping senior workers to cope with the anguish and pain of suddenly being unwanted, of not having a job and the significance they put into it — a reliable network that they have traditionally first turned to in times of trouble.

“They feel alone and helpless. I spend a lot of time showing them how to cope with the change. The adjustment from company loyalty to what is now needed most — individual skills — is not easy for many,” he says.

As a first step to nurture an independent spirit, Takahashi says, he is helping his clients to write their resumes. “They have never had to even write a resume before because they just stuck to one company. It is a totally new thing for them,” he points out.

In addition, the workers are encouraged to search aggressively for their own jobs, a major change from the old system where employees were recruited by companies even before they left college.

Takahashi also encourages middle-aged workers to do the unprecedented — writing down their own job description and salary when seeking a new job.

“I want them to discover their own needs and find the job they would be most comfortable with because this is the only way they can survive in the new labor market,” he says.

Japan’s new labour market is seeing major social changes in a society that has taken pains to preserve the group spirit and frowned on individualism.

Ken Sato, an employee at a major insurance company, says he quit his job of 25 years last month and now works as partner in a new restaurant he started with a friend.

“You know what?” says the 56-year-old Kato. “I am enjoying myself. I suddenly realise how stifled I must have been in my old company. I just worked hard and towed the line.”

Having learned from his own experience, Sato says he is encouraging his son to take a job in a foreign company. “No job in a Japanese company is secure anymore. So he might as well take the risk of working in a new environment,” he explains.

The change in attitude is also evident among young Japanese. “I quit my old company without a bit of regret,” explains Hiroshi Date, who used to work at a home for the elderly.

Last April, the 29-year-old Date set up Kaigo Care, a new nursing care company for the elderly, along with four college friends.

Muses Date: “I just do not want to lead a life like my father who worked 12 hours a day for a company in exchange for a secure salary. That’s not for me. I want to be able to feel that I am in charge of my own life.”