70 years of rampant abortion and the high expense of raising educated children has led to demographic inversion, and young Japanese workers holding all the cards. The only solution is the one Japan is least likely to implement, which is bringing in workers from abroad, even though there are many educated workers world-wide who are Nihonophiles and would love to become permanent residents and corporate management.
I don’t understand the universal desire to put bodies back in offices.
I realized decades ago that I could easily do my job (IT) from home. Thanks largely to Covid, I finally had an employer willing.
Just as I suspected, my productivity has soared and I’m a happier employee, and the company saves money because I pay the heat/water/Internet/phone bills for my space at home.
If someone wants me to drive into the office again, they’re going to have to pay me much more and deal with the resulting lack of productivity. It’s a lose/lose proposition for the company.
This is a serious problem everywhere.
Except maybe Russia where there are plenty of involuntary jobs in the military.
This may be another Lost Generation, like that of WWI.
Part of that is the Japanese sense of superiority lurking in the background of their culture.
CC
Japan is protecting their country by keeping it Japanese. We would be well advised to take note. In 100 years Japan may not be a powerhouse but it'll still be Japan, in 100 years the U.S. will look like the movie Idiocracy with a population of spanish speaking imbeciles lorded over by Hindi speaking executives. We have 330 million people in the U.S., more than enough to satisfy our labor demands as well as home grown executive talent. Bringing in cheap labor from third world countries and H-1B talent because we don't want to pay going rates for home grown engineers will be the destruction of the U.S. as we know it. The Japanese know this, that's why they don't allow it.