Jump to content

Employment Ice Age

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by DragonFury (talk | contribs) at 18:56, 7 October 2022 (→Social Impact). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Youth unemployment rate in OECD countries (15-24 age)[1]

Employment Ice Age (Template:Lang-ja) is a term in Japan (the term lost generation is also used) that refers to people who became accustomed to unstable and temporary employment beginning in the 1990s, until at least 2010. This period has particularly affected Gen X (people in their 40s in 2019) and impacted their financial well-being, health, outlook, and ability to start families.[2] Government officials are concerned about developing impacts as their focus has been on the existing explosion of elderly (75+) rather than those too poor to have ever started a family who themselves will be moving into old age largely absent of the financial resources other generations had. Government efforts on this matter are deemed far too little and too late and Nikkei writers claim that lawmakers remain unaware of the gravity of the situation.[2]

Economic impact

Japan's asset price bubble collapse in 1991 led to a period of economic stagnation known as the "lost decade", sometimes extended to a "lost 20 years" or greater. From 1995 to 2007 GDP fell from $5.33 trillion to $4.36 trillion in nominal terms.[3] From the early 2000s, the Bank of Japan set out to encourage economic growth through a novel policy of quantitative easing.[4][5] Debt levels continued to rise in response to the Global Financial Crisis in 2007, the Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami and Fukushima Nuclear Disaster in 2011, and the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020. As of 2021, Japan has significantly higher levels of public debt than any other developed nation at approximately 260% of GDP.[6]

Before

The Japanese economy is a highly developed free-market economy.[7] It is the world's second-largest developed economy.[8] It is the third-largest in the world by nominal GDP and the fourth-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP).[9][10] Japan is a member of both the G7 and G20.

From the mid-1970s to 1985, after the 1973 Oil Crisis ratio of new jobs in the Japanese labor market given to applicants was between 0.9 and 1 which remained till 1988. The ratio of active job openings to applicants was, however, between 0.6 and 0.7.[a][11]

During

Due to the Plaza Accord in September 1985, and a cultural appreciation of the yen, the Japanese economy became a bubble economy, led by domestic demand, with a low-interest rate policy. Companies native to Japan reached record highs in their stock prices, which led to excessive capital, profit in 1989, the Tokyo Stock Exchange (Japanese stock market) reached another high index of 40,000 U.S dollars due to the Japanese economy's profits.[12]

The employment ratio of new jobs/job offers given to applicants went up by 3 points, to 1.43 in 1991.[11]

After

The Bank of Japan, in an effort to combat the economic stagnation in 1989, sharply raised inter-bank lending rates. This caused the figurative "pop" of the Japanese economic bubble, starting the new decade off with a recession not seen since the post-war period. This caused the fall of equity and asset prices, which led to overly-leveraged Japanese banks and insurance companies with books full of bad debt. The financial institutions were bailed out through capital infusions from the Government, loans and cheap credit from the central bank, and the ability to postpone the recognition of losses, ultimately turning them into zombie banks.

These banks injected the funds they got from bailouts into what would be zombie funds, saying the funds were too big to fail. This later became one of the reasons for Japanese economic stagnation in the 1990s, and the shrinking of the number of national banks in Japan to just four. However, since the banks could only survive with government bailouts, these funds failed anyway, and so did the banks in the 2000s.

The ratio of new jobs/job offers given to applicants reached its lowest level at 0.45 in 2009, but climbed to a record high at 1.62 in 2018,[11] it is 1.25 in July 2022.[b] [13]

Social impact

Failed economy kicked off what would be called the Japanese Lost Generation, which in the 1990s were college graduates who couldn't get a job, and thus, suffered the economic consequences of not having a job. Now, these same graduates are 40. And they have only been able to find low-paying, part-time jobs due to the extreme influence of the popping of the economic bubble.

The Lost Generation also presents the “8050s Problem”, which entails middle-aged, reclusive and unemployed Japanese still dependent on their elderly parents for housing and financial assistance. The group is defined loosely as those aged 35 to 44 who left school between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s, were unable to get permanent jobs, and ended up flitting from one low-wage, dead-end part-time job to another. Japan has an estimated 613,000 middle-aged hikikomori, a term usually used to describe socially withdrawn adolescents who hole up in their bedrooms, according to the results of a government survey released in March 2019, these shut-ins deserve acceptance and a place within society.[14][15][16]

Violence

Many of Japan's recent violent crimes such as by Michinao Kono, the knife yielding man killing 2 and injuring 19 in May 2019 was an out-of-work 45-year-old who never left his parent's home. The 'Joker attack' committed by Kyoto Hotori on 1 November 2021 was an unemployed men who held a grudge against society. Japan's former prime minister Shinzo Abe killing on 8 July 2022 by Tetsuya Yamagami was former member of Japan's self-defence-force and struggler for full-time job.[17][18]

Support

Since Japan’s postwar period the employment ice-age was the first to reveal necessity for young people to receive support from society.

While empirical research on the generation effect in labor economics includes analysis regarding population size and state of demand (Ota, Genda, and Kondo 2007), this analysis investigates the conditions of transitions into employment as the result of population size and the state of demand. It could be suggested that one of the key reasons why the “employment ice-age generation” prompted the youth employment problem to be widely recognized is that Japanese society was unable to withstand the considerable quantitative impact of this problem, due to the fact that the population size is large in comparison with other generations.[19]

[20]

"When those in need try and get help, they are asked to work harder, and if that doesn't work, their families are expected to support them,"- Hiroto Watanabe: Author “Tatawanakereba Shakai wa Kowareru” (“Society Will Collapse if We Don’t Fight”)

[21][22]

On the eve of new year 2020, amid chronic labour shortages in Japan's tightest job market, Govt. has appealed among employers (accustomed to hiring fresh graduates whom they can train and mould from scratch) for a major exemplar shift to hire 3 million “Employment Ice-age Generation” to full-time employees which are among 21.2 million (37.9 per cent of Japan's workforce) "irregular" workers for whom Japanese Government government pledged to spend 65 billion ¥ (US$962 million) in the next three years.[23][c]

Psychiatry

Sociologists said this group's precarious employment and low incomes have left them with bare-bone savings which, in turn, have resulted in fewer marriages and children, and a rise in hikikomori (social recluses) or “withdrawal”―a phenomenon estimated by University of Tsukuba psychologist Tamaki Saito, also author of controversial Japanese best seller “Hikikomori: Adolescence without End” that made the public aware of the social problem to involve as many as one million Japanese adolescents and young adults forced into their shells by oppressive circumstances such as bullying, harassment and unemployment making them feel dispirited and diffident about taking on new challenges have withdrawn from society, retreating to their rooms for months or years and severing almost all ties to the outside world, living off their parents, manifesting a specific, interconnected series of symptoms that do not fit neatly with any single, easily identifiable mental condition, such as depression. Rejecting the tendency to moralize or pathologize, Saitō sensitively describes how families and caregivers can support individuals in withdrawal and help them take steps toward recovery. At the same time, his perspective sparked contention over the contributions of cultural characteristics―including family structure, the education system, and gender relations―to the problem of social withdrawal in Japan and abroad. [24]

Births

Japan's birthrate problem which is lowest in world rests in the country's rigid gender roles. The major cause of declining birthrates is the fact that women are delaying marriage. There were also fewer marriages in 2020, the number of registered marriages fell 12.3% of last year to 525,490, a post-war record, the ministry said. [25] Since Japanese women traditionally expect men to be providers, men who don't make enough to support a family either can't find partners or feel so underconfident that they don't bother. The result is the Japanese phenomenon called Sōshoku-kei danshi or “Grass-eaters” or “Herbivore men.” referring to 75% of Japanese males in their 20s to 40s who don't date or marry.[26]

Notes

  1. ^ The job-openings-to-applicants ratio is calculated based on the number of effective job openings and job seekers to indicate how many jobs per job applicant are available in a certain period.
  2. ^ Jobs to Applicants Ratio : An indicator published on a monthly basis by Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare https://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/ is a comprehensive assessment of supply and demand balance in the Japanese labor market and national economic development indicating employment health in the economy. It is limited to recruitment and job seeking through the Public Employment Security Office Japan. The ratio represents the ratio of job seekers to job openings excluding new graduates. A higher than expected number should be taken as positive to JPY, while a lower than expected number as negative.
  3. ^ Mr Yukio Okubo, director of think-tank Recruit Works Institute, told Nikkei Business magazine: "Rather than focusing on a single generation, giving opportunities for everyone who has not had the chance to skill up should be at the center of the debate. "He added: "Forcing employment is the wrong policy. Without skills, people cannot get motivated and perform well in the work they are expected to do. This just leads to a downward spiral."

References

  1. ^ OECD Labour Force Statistics 2020, OECD Labour Force Statistics, OECD, 2020, doi:10.1787/23083387, ISBN 9789264313217
  2. ^ a b "Nightmare 2040: Japan's lost generation". Nikkei Asian Review.
  3. ^ "Japanese GDP, nominal".
  4. ^ Sean, Ross. "The Diminishing Effects of Japan's Quantitative Easing". Investopedia. Retrieved 1 June 2021.
  5. ^ Oh, Sunny. "Here's a lesson from Japan about the threat of a U.S. debt crisis". MarketWatch.
  6. ^ One, Mitsuru. "Nikkei: How the world is embracing Japan style economics". Nikkei.
  7. ^ Lechevalier, Sébastien (2014). The Great Transformation of Japanese Capitalism. Routledge. p. 204. ISBN 9781317974963.
  8. ^ "Country statistical profile: Japan". OECD iLibrary. 28 February 2013. Archived from the original on 4 March 2013. Retrieved 19 June 2013.
  9. ^ "World Economic Outlook Database, April 2016 – Report for Selected Countries and Subjects". International Monetary Fund (IMF). Retrieved 6 October 2015.
  10. ^ Kyung Lah (14 February 2011). "Japan: Economy slips to Third in world". CNN.
  11. ^ a b c "Annual average of job openings-to-applicants ratio in Japan from fiscal year 1981 to 2020". Statista. Retrieved 2 August 2022.
  12. ^ Keenan, Hannah (2021-01-07). "Melting the Employment Ice Age: How Will Japan Save Its Lost Generation?". Glimpse from the Globe. Retrieved 2021-03-25.
  13. ^ "Japan Jobs to Applicants Ratio". MQL5. Retrieved 2 August 2022.
  14. ^ "Melting the Employment Ice Age: How Will Japan Save Its Lost Generation?". Glimse from the globe. Retrieved 7 January 2021.
  15. ^ "The Scars Of Japan's Employment Ice Age". Magzter. Retrieved 5 October 2020.
  16. ^ "Japan's Lost Generation Is Still Jobless and Living With Their Parents". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2 October 2020.
  17. ^ "Japanese man in Joker costume injures 17 in knife attack on Tokyo". BBC. Retrieved 1 November 2021.
  18. ^ "Shinzo Abe killing: Why a religious group has been put in the spotlight". BBC. Retrieved 27 July 2022.
  19. ^ Long-Term Effects of a Recession at Labor Market Entry in Japan and the United StatesVol. 45, No. 1 (Winter, 2010). University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 157–196.
  20. ^ Hori, Yukie. "Japan's "Employment Ice-age Generation" Today: Investigating the Impact of Instability in the School-to-work Transition". Japan Labor Issues, vol.4, no.20, December 2019-January 2020. p. 12. Retrieved 1 August 2022.
  21. ^ "普通に働ける社会へ". Retrieved 27 July 2022.
  22. ^ "Hiroto Watanabe: "If there is no vision, there is nothing to work toward"". The Japan Times. Retrieved 27 July 2022.
  23. ^ "Japan takes steps to help those trapped in 'employment ice age'". The Straits Times. Retrieved 1 January 2020.
  24. ^ Saitō, Tamaki. Hikikomori: Adolescence without End. University of Minnesota Press. pp. 208 pages. ISBN 978-0816654598. Retrieved 1 August 2022.
  25. ^ "Japan's birth rate fell to another record low in 2020". CNN. Retrieved 5 June 2021.
  26. ^ "Why Is Japan's Birth Rate Decreasing?". Japan Junky. Retrieved 1 August 2022.

See also

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Employment_Ice_Age&oldid=1114682951"