While Japan is rife with middlemen taking the cut, 礼金 (key money) is not a good example. It goes directly to your landlord, just like your rent. Hiring in IT d

While Japan is rife with middlemen taking the cut, 礼金 (key money) is not a good example. It goes directly to your landlord, just like your rent. Hiring in IT does have a lot of room for taking cuts. Most Japanese companies (even large ones - or rather, especially large ones) are very bad in doing their own recruiting, so they have to pay a lot of upfront fees to headhunters for every direct employee hired. This is another reason why hiring consulting staff can seem cheap on the short term.