Feature: Japan's "job for life" culture crumbles as economy wanes, society shifts

From the baby boomer era that saw Japan's older generations work to rebuild the nation after WWII to following generations who inherited the growing economic prosperity that ran through the bubble era, one constant for the nation's working people in recent history has been the guarantee of a job for life.

White and blue collar workers alike, whether they graduated from high school or university, worked for an investment bank or in a factory, would all, on joining their respective companies, be able to rest assured that from day one until retirement age of well into their 60s, they would be financially taken care of by their firms.

Such a life-long guarantee of work has traditionally worked both ways. In exchange for the assurance of a regular paycheck, generous biannual bonuses and a pension that would carry an employee through their silver years until their last breath, companies would insist on loyalty, and for some, demand that their staff prioritize working for their company above all else.

"It was a simple formula back then, you'd make sure to arrive at the office on time, do the work to the best of your ability while at your desk, enjoy a coffee and a cigarette with your friends a couple of times a day, and never ever leave the office before your boss," said Shigeru Ishida, a 67-year-old retiree, who worked for Hitachi. sourcing materials and components for construction machinery in the nation's capital.

Ishida said his days at the company where he both began and ended his career were always grievously long and sometimes if they involved visiting a client in a prefecture outside Tokyo, he'd have to stay overnight in a business hotel or just "crash in an all-night Izakaya" (restaurant) and jump on the first train to make sure to be back at his desk on time.

"It wasn't unusual to work 11, 12 or more hours a day and then we'd often drink with our clients as a lot of business was, in those days, not done by email or in conference rooms, but in bars, (hostess) clubs and Izakayas," Ishida reminisced.

"It was tough, we never had enough sleep, but we were constantly deepening relationships with our customers, clients and prospective contacts after hours -- it was all face-to-face. Otherwise if our section manager or more senior bosses wanted to drink, well, that was work too."

He explained that work was his "true family" and his colleagues his "brothers." While he spent a lifetime providing for a beloved wife and two children -- his biological family -- work was his main priority and this was commonly understood to underpin Japan's working ethos for many decades.

"My working life from start to finish was like a marriage with no possibility of divorce," he said, adding that for his generation of "salaryman" such a viewpoint was the norm and was based on "mutual trust and unwavering loyalty."

Nowadays, however, such an ethos is far from the norm, punctuated by globalization, societal shifts and an economic outlook that sees big businesses in Japan, according to the central bank's latest quarterly Tankan survey, feeling pessimistic as the world's third-largest economy has witnessed demand for its goods wane, leading to falling production and exports, and households feeling the pinch as wages and bonuses remain comparatively paltry, which has pummeled domestic consumption.

Japan's post-bubble era has seen a number of changes to Japan's economic and social landscape, that also includes the growing pressures of a shrinking and rapidly-aging population, which has led to a growing demographic crisis.

The current administration under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is struggling to implement actual, definitive solutions for, with various repackaged versions of the leader's failed "Abenomics" rescue plans falling someway short, as leading economists have consistently attested.

"There's just not the stability there once was in the job market and this is evidenced in the increasing numbers of people switching jobs mid-career and the fact that the economic downturn has led to a number of companies laying off large numbers of employees, and offering early retirement as part of restructuring or turnaround plans due to falling revenues," sociologist and sessional lecturer, Keiko Gono, told Xinhua.

"And in this environment, people feel less secure on both sides of the fence; the companies can no longer make lifetime guarantees and the employees no longer feel the same sense of loyalty, as we've seen by the rise of headhunting here and people switching from traditional Japanese firms to international ones for more perks, including the chance to live overseas," Gono said.

She went on to say that new troops of freshman join the workforce from high schools or universities every year.

With this year's intake transitioning to working life at the beginning of this month, their ideology is changing. Many, she proffered, are not necessarily thinking of their new employers with long-term goals in mind and with notions of loyalty to their companies being far less important to them than they were to their parents' and their grandparents' generations.

A recent survey confirmed the shifting and increasing sense of job insecurity and, hence, declining trust from employees in their companies. According to Edelman PR, who polled Japanese workers on their attitudes and commitment under the current climate of economic anguish, to discover just how loyal they feel toward their employers, 60 percent of the respondents have a mistrust of the companies they work for.

In terms of other countries polled regarding the same issue, Japan was found to rank bottom in terms of its employees' trust of their companies, with Mexico coming in top. Some 89 percent of polled Mexicans say they trust their companies, with other countries including the U.S., British and Australian workers trusting their companies at rates of 64, 57 and 54 percent respectively.

In a particularly pertinent question to those workers polled in Japan, which asked whether they agree with the statement: "I foresee improvement in the next five years for myself and my ability to provide for my family," only 19 percent of white collar workers in Japan agreed with the statement, with the agreement among blue collar workers coming in at just 15 percent, compared to a global average of 55 and 47 percent for the different general sectors.

"I worked hard to get into university and then didn't really do a great deal for the four years I was there, as I had a part-time job with semi-full-time hours and joined in lots of extracurricular club activities," Kenta Furutani, 22, a new employee at a well-known pharmaceutical company, told Xinhua.

"I've been working here for less than a week and the on the job training (OJT) will be a couple of months and then the (HR) managers will decide which departments and in which positions we'll be best suited. I know this is a big company and I was happy they accepted me, but I studied literature and philosophy in university and would like to travel in the future," said the youngster, adding that he has "zero interest" in the pharmaceutical industry, but that it was a "fairly prestigious" company.

"It's not a question of trust or mistrust, particularly, or being disloyal. It's my life and I don't want it controlled by a company. I'll work hard for a couple of years and either travel or switch to an international company so I can work overseas and earn more. I'd quite like to live in San Francisco," he concluded, rather matter-of-factly. Endit