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More on the HR practices over at Yakuza, Inc.

February 12, 2007
By Ken Worsley


A few days ago we published a piece on the growing number of part-time Yakuza workers in Japan, and the corresponding decrease in ‘full-time’ gangsters. Jun Okumura of the Global Talk 21 blog has written on a similar topic. He picked up a BBC piece concerning the recent Yakuza turf wars in Tokyo which claimed:

The number of gangsters - known as yakuza - in Japan has grown in the past 10 years to more than 85,000, according to official figures.

Those official figures, of course, would be from Japan’s National Police Agency. Jun has used an NPA report showing Yakuza membership from 1992 to 2006 to demonstrate that the number of mobsters declined quickly after the bursting of the bubble and has been slowly picking up since. Again, this supports our conclusion that the Yakuza have stayed ahead of the curve in relation to Japan’s legitimate business sector.

Okumura, however, is not content to demonstrate that point only. As he puts it later:

But not even that is the whole story. You see, the first chart in the PDF document shows us that the top three yakuza syndicates dominate the industry, accounting for 63,000, or 76.2%, of all yakuza members. Apparently, the lean years has forced consolidation across the entire industry, and produced an oligopoly.

We can only wonder what would have happened if the banking sector had reacted so quickly. It seems about time for someone to publish a Yakuza Way series of management books…

Filed Under Black Market, Human Resources 

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Comments

2 Responses to “More on the HR practices over at Yakuza, Inc.”

  1. Jun Okumura on February 12th, 2007 1:46 pm

    Thank you for citing my blog. I can see that this is a news site with real substance. I’ll be looking in from time to time.

    I’ve read your original post. It’s amusing how we both separately came to the same conclusion, i.e. that the yakuza industry has been ahead of the curve compared to the rest of corporate Japan. Chalk one up for the unseen hand of market economy principles. Robert Whiting’s Tokyo Underworld tells you that the post-WW II industry has been far more open to non-Japanese enterpreneurs and employees; thus the homage in my title.

  2. Ken Worsley on February 12th, 2007 3:53 pm

    Jun, thanks for your comment and the kind words. I, too, was surprised that we came to the same conclusion - I actually started reading your piece cautiously since I was afraid you might have come to some solid conclusion that would make me look like a fool. Ha!

    I think it’s been well researched that underworld crime businesses are able to respond better and faster to market forces, but I have hardly looked into the matter myself. Now I see where your title comes from; that’s one of the texts I’ve been meaning to read but not yet able to procure…I’ll have to change that soon.

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