Where are you sleeping tonight?

April 30, 2007
By Ken Worsley

According to the Japan Complex Cafe Association, as of 2005, there were about 2,740 Internet cafes located across Japan. Based on visits made to 34 Internet cafes in ten prefectures carried out by “local labor unions and private organizations,” the Asahi Shimbun has run a piece with the headline: 75% of Net cafes home to ‘refugees’

Attention grabbing stuff, to be sure. Although the sample size is hardly significant, it does demonstrate that there are underlying problems with Japan’s employment conditions, despite much celebrated recent rises in disposable income and consumer spending.

Although recent data from the Ministry of Health, labor and Welfare shows that the number of people employed nationwide continues to increase slightly each month, the number of jobs per applicant are narrowing: in March, this figure was 1.03, down from 1.05 in February.

In March, more people tend to look for new jobs in Japan than in February, though companies also tend to recruit more heavily, so these two factors should balance each other out of the equation. The question is whether or not companies are finding the people they need (the Bank of Japan’s most recent Tankan survey suggests that they are not), and whether or not there is enough liquidity in the job market for employment seekers to find positions that satisfy them, and thereby allow them to work at close to full levels of productivity.

Will we see a bottleneck or a crunch in the number of jobs being offered in the coming months? It’s well rumored that corporate Japan is fearful of a slowdown in the US economy, so that possibility looms.

How could it be avoided? That’s the tough question: after all, I don’t mind if people read this at an Internet cafe, but I hope it isn’t in the same chair they call ‘futon.’

Filed Under Labor and Wages