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Japan keeps its unemployment low in a very forceful way. There are a huge number of people employed for low pay doing low efficiency work, just to keep everyone

Japan keeps its unemployment low in a very forceful way. There are a huge number of people employed for low pay doing low efficiency work, just to keep everyone working a job. For example, you might see someone telling pedestrians to watch their step near a construction site, and the voice announcing trains at the station might be a real person holding a microphone.

mschuster91 10y ago
> and the voice announcing trains at the station might be a real person holding a microphone. Before the privatization attempts, the Deutsche Bahn used real announcers on the major train stations. Now, after decades of cost-cutting, it's pre-recorded audio pieces played by a computer. They sound broken and mismatching (because it's no TTS engine), they fail to be played half the time (and frequent rail users would claim the failure rate at 90%+) and of course the stuff breaks down when something unexpected happens (like emergency rail closures, due to people on the rails, med emergencies, police action, ...).
- adwn 10y ago
  Still better than when the train driver makes the announcements, which are often hardly intelligible, because they're either too far away from the microphone, or because the cockpit is too noisy. It gets even better when they have to speak English as well: Then their favorite technique is to speak so fast that they skip every second syllable, hoping that it will be over soon.
  - mschuster91 10y ago
    I agree with you on the train drivers' announcements, they tend to suck most of the time and usually suck most when the train is moving, because the mike picks up all the noise from the engine. Or because the connectors between carriages / the cabling wears down and signal quality degrades. But on a station it is possible to only put people in front of the mike who speak accent-free German and English, and to properly adjust and maintain the amps, speakers and wiring.
    - trprog 10y ago
      Unless they are in a soundproof room somewhere you still have the problem of background noise coming through the speakers. One of the great benefits of automated or prerecorded messages is that they have no background noise.
- Jdam 10y ago
  For the Berlin S-Bahn, there is a weird mix of automatic and manual announcement. Where the train is heading is announced automatically, whereas "Einsteigen bitte" (board please) and "Zurückbleiben bitte" (stay clear) is announced by the driver. I imagine a driver saying this every 2-3 minutes in an 8 hour shift. But also, I disagree with the failure rate of 90+%, from my experience I'd say it works pretty well in 90+% of the time. The system can even announce the "umgekehrte Wagenreihung" ;)
- dom0 10y ago
  Personally I mostly find the scheduling of announcements annoying. Often it will broadcast generic reminders in batches of 2-3 and sometimes repeat them another time for good measure. The pronunciation of city names is also rather lacking in many instances, and like you say often doesn't match the surrounding speech.
- Symbiote 10y ago
  In Britain, all the station names are pre-recorded by a professional voice actor, as well as common problems, and many not-so-common ones. "The nineteen fifty two ... Southern service to ... Brighton ... is delayed by approximately ... twelve ... minutes due to ... trespassers-on-the-railway. Please listen for further announcements. We apologize for the inconvenience." (Replace with "a passenger taken ill on a train" or "action by the police".) "The train approaching platform ... two ... is the ... delayed ... nineteen fifty-two ... Southern ... service to ... Brighton ... calling at ... Clapham Junction, East Croydon, Gatwick Airport, Haywards Heath and Brighton. This train has ... twelve ... coaches. Platform ... two ... for the nineteen fifty-two service to ... Brighton." I much prefer it to a live announcement. The slightly ... odd pauses are distinctive, but mean derivations from the usual announcement stand out, whilst the whole thing is soporific for commuters. For others, there's the much-needed repetition of the most important bits; the destination of the train is spoken three times. Examples: https://youtu.be/0cg-n-GF38E?t=139 https://youtu.be/0cg-n-GF38E?t=139 (At 3:20 there's a Welsh one!) (I don't like the repeated keep-your-luggage announcements, but maybe they're justified since people are still trying to bomb railways with abandoned luggage.)
  - TomMarius 10y ago
    Same in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
  - arjie 10y ago
    Absolutely love these mad libs style announcements. I can't say why but they give me a rather pleasant feeling, and the clear tone of voice change seems to signal to me "important stuff here" while the rest is "filler here". Lewisham, especially, is so out of character. Highly amusing.
- kriro 10y ago
  One thing I like and heard for the first time on public buses in Bamberg (Germany) is prerecorded station names as in "next stop X" where each stop was read by a different school child. Made it a lot more friendly than the standard same voice for everything...and I'm assuming it was a local school class and they probably enjoy having their stations :D
witty_username 10y ago
Perhaps I'm missing something, but how is "very forceful"? Aren't these people are voluntary doing this work?
- wolf550e 10y ago
  "forceful" probably means those jobs would not exist in pure capitalism.
  - dmichulke 10y ago
    I think they don't exist because there are minimum wage laws and it simply doesn't pay off to employ someone for ~8.50 (EUR or USD) an hour to do this because it generates less than it costs. Combine that with labor laws, unemployment benefits, food stamps and other "poverty fighting schemes" and no one is ever incentivized to take such a job for such a pay. Summing up, my conclusion is the opposite of yours - those jobs would probably exist in pure capitalism.
    - SixSigma 10y ago
      Minimum wage is a destructive force
      - cpursley 10y ago
        I agree, but you're getting a lot of downvotes. Perhaps explain why minimum wage is a destructive force.
    - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
      Japan has minimum wages.
    - makeapoint 10y ago
      Japan has undergone massive changes in the last ~20 years due to their "missing decade." But their culture for forty years before that included employment practices that would surprise many USians. For instance, until recently ir was unusual for a person to have more than one employer in their lifetime. You entered the workforce just after high school or college and stayed with that employer for the rest of your career. People didn't quit and get a different job. And employers didn't fire people. The elderly person standing in front of the construction fence warning people to be careful because of the danger used to be construction worker. Maybe they worked their way up in the company until they bumped into the Peter principle or until they physically or mentally couldn't do the job. Then then moved over, around, and down as their abilities declined. The folks who made it high enough to earn a retirement retire. The folks who didn't build a nest egg or spent their egg on Grandma's hospice care, or whatever, depend on the company to keep them in the mail room or sweeping the front lobby or something that will pay the rent and buy groceries. I have seen many US companies that created Mission Statements and formalized a list of Corporate Values that included Loyalty. But I have seen very few US companies that are loyal to their employees. I suppose there are a lot of ways to be disloyal, but Japanese companies have generally been loyal in maintaining some level of employment to even the least competent of their employees.
Tsagadai 10y ago
You haven't spent a lot of time in Japan. There are a lot of unemployed older men who have been out of work since the 1994 recession.

mschuster91 10y ago

> and the voice announcing trains at the station might be a real person holding a microphone. Before the privatization attempts, the Deutsche Bahn used real announcers on the major train stations. Now, after decades of cost-cutting, it's pre-recorded audio pieces played by a computer. They sound broken and mismatching (because it's no TTS engine), they fail to be played half the time (and frequent rail users would claim the failure rate at 90%+) and of course the stuff breaks down when something unexpected happens (like emergency rail closures, due to people on the rails, med emergencies, police action, ...).

adwn 10y ago
Still better than when the train driver makes the announcements, which are often hardly intelligible, because they're either too far away from the microphone, or because the cockpit is too noisy. It gets even better when they have to speak English as well: Then their favorite technique is to speak so fast that they skip every second syllable, hoping that it will be over soon.
- mschuster91 10y ago
  I agree with you on the train drivers' announcements, they tend to suck most of the time and usually suck most when the train is moving, because the mike picks up all the noise from the engine. Or because the connectors between carriages / the cabling wears down and signal quality degrades. But on a station it is possible to only put people in front of the mike who speak accent-free German and English, and to properly adjust and maintain the amps, speakers and wiring.
  - trprog 10y ago
    Unless they are in a soundproof room somewhere you still have the problem of background noise coming through the speakers. One of the great benefits of automated or prerecorded messages is that they have no background noise.
Jdam 10y ago
For the Berlin S-Bahn, there is a weird mix of automatic and manual announcement. Where the train is heading is announced automatically, whereas "Einsteigen bitte" (board please) and "Zurückbleiben bitte" (stay clear) is announced by the driver. I imagine a driver saying this every 2-3 minutes in an 8 hour shift. But also, I disagree with the failure rate of 90+%, from my experience I'd say it works pretty well in 90+% of the time. The system can even announce the "umgekehrte Wagenreihung" ;)
dom0 10y ago
Personally I mostly find the scheduling of announcements annoying. Often it will broadcast generic reminders in batches of 2-3 and sometimes repeat them another time for good measure. The pronunciation of city names is also rather lacking in many instances, and like you say often doesn't match the surrounding speech.
Symbiote 10y ago
In Britain, all the station names are pre-recorded by a professional voice actor, as well as common problems, and many not-so-common ones. "The nineteen fifty two ... Southern service to ... Brighton ... is delayed by approximately ... twelve ... minutes due to ... trespassers-on-the-railway. Please listen for further announcements. We apologize for the inconvenience." (Replace with "a passenger taken ill on a train" or "action by the police".) "The train approaching platform ... two ... is the ... delayed ... nineteen fifty-two ... Southern ... service to ... Brighton ... calling at ... Clapham Junction, East Croydon, Gatwick Airport, Haywards Heath and Brighton. This train has ... twelve ... coaches. Platform ... two ... for the nineteen fifty-two service to ... Brighton." I much prefer it to a live announcement. The slightly ... odd pauses are distinctive, but mean derivations from the usual announcement stand out, whilst the whole thing is soporific for commuters. For others, there's the much-needed repetition of the most important bits; the destination of the train is spoken three times. Examples: https://youtu.be/0cg-n-GF38E?t=139 https://youtu.be/0cg-n-GF38E?t=139 (At 3:20 there's a Welsh one!) (I don't like the repeated keep-your-luggage announcements, but maybe they're justified since people are still trying to bomb railways with abandoned luggage.)
- TomMarius 10y ago
  Same in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
- arjie 10y ago
  Absolutely love these mad libs style announcements. I can't say why but they give me a rather pleasant feeling, and the clear tone of voice change seems to signal to me "important stuff here" while the rest is "filler here". Lewisham, especially, is so out of character. Highly amusing.
kriro 10y ago
One thing I like and heard for the first time on public buses in Bamberg (Germany) is prerecorded station names as in "next stop X" where each stop was read by a different school child. Made it a lot more friendly than the standard same voice for everything...and I'm assuming it was a local school class and they probably enjoy having their stations :D

witty_username 10y ago

Perhaps I'm missing something, but how is "very forceful"? Aren't these people are voluntary doing this work?

wolf550e 10y ago
"forceful" probably means those jobs would not exist in pure capitalism.
- dmichulke 10y ago
  I think they don't exist because there are minimum wage laws and it simply doesn't pay off to employ someone for ~8.50 (EUR or USD) an hour to do this because it generates less than it costs. Combine that with labor laws, unemployment benefits, food stamps and other "poverty fighting schemes" and no one is ever incentivized to take such a job for such a pay. Summing up, my conclusion is the opposite of yours - those jobs would probably exist in pure capitalism.
  - SixSigma 10y ago
    Minimum wage is a destructive force
    - cpursley 10y ago
      I agree, but you're getting a lot of downvotes. Perhaps explain why minimum wage is a destructive force.
  - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
    Japan has minimum wages.
  - makeapoint 10y ago
    Japan has undergone massive changes in the last ~20 years due to their "missing decade." But their culture for forty years before that included employment practices that would surprise many USians. For instance, until recently ir was unusual for a person to have more than one employer in their lifetime. You entered the workforce just after high school or college and stayed with that employer for the rest of your career. People didn't quit and get a different job. And employers didn't fire people. The elderly person standing in front of the construction fence warning people to be careful because of the danger used to be construction worker. Maybe they worked their way up in the company until they bumped into the Peter principle or until they physically or mentally couldn't do the job. Then then moved over, around, and down as their abilities declined. The folks who made it high enough to earn a retirement retire. The folks who didn't build a nest egg or spent their egg on Grandma's hospice care, or whatever, depend on the company to keep them in the mail room or sweeping the front lobby or something that will pay the rent and buy groceries. I have seen many US companies that created Mission Statements and formalized a list of Corporate Values that included Loyalty. But I have seen very few US companies that are loyal to their employees. I suppose there are a lot of ways to be disloyal, but Japanese companies have generally been loyal in maintaining some level of employment to even the least competent of their employees.

Tsagadai 10y ago

You haven't spent a lot of time in Japan. There are a lot of unemployed older men who have been out of work since the 1994 recession.