4 ms·

Japan here. It does not seem to affect much. Companies look based on their performance. Interestingly, we got more applicants from the US and Canada recently. I

by canpan 4y ago

Japan here. It does not seem to affect much. Companies look based on their performance. Interestingly, we got more applicants from the US and Canada recently. I heard multiple times that people want a "stable" job over higher comp. Especially young developers. Culture shift? Some companies actually raised salaries recently because of the cost of living (See the news about Nintendo and others). However the salaries in Japan have been stagnant for years, so this was kind of overdue.

majikaja 4y ago
>Culture shift? Maybe one could call it accepting economic reality.. I don't recommend pure development as a career here for people who want to earn big money.
seanmcdirmid 4y ago
A lot of young people want the experience of working abroad, they just want into live in and experience another culture. Not really economic refugees (yet). I did this in china for 9 years and it was a great life experience, although my compensation lagged a bit compared what I could make in the states (now working for google to catch up).
unscaled 4y ago
Firing full-time employees in Japan is quite hard. If the company is taken to court, the burden of proof is quite high. Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, so all that I say here is my personal understanding, from working in Japan, but also from talking to lawyers about this. Firing an employee due to lack of competence or bad performance is permitted by law, but practically unheard of in practice - the bar for proving this is quite high. Firing an employee due to misconduct is possible, but the bar is quite high. Embezzlement, getting kickbacks or getting into trouble with the law (outside your job) are common causes for termination, but I've even heard of cases of embezzlement and kickbacks where the employee in question was demoted instead of being fired. Firing an employee due to the company's financial situation is often referred to as Risutora (corporate restructuring). That's perfectly doable, but the bar again is high. If the company is taken to court, they will have to prove the economic necessity for reducing their workforce and that they tried anything they can before they resorted to firing people. This includes: - Offering a voluntary resignation plan. This means the employee reigns and get some monetary compensation. - Cutting other unnecessary costs besides salaries (otherwise they cannot prove economic necessity) - Selecting the employees that will be fired based an objective and fair criteria, no random culling of 10% of your workforce. Since the bar for all of these is quite high, employers in Japan will more often try to negotiate voluntary resignation plans or (unfortunately quite often) bully their employees into resignation. The bullying tactic involves demotion, changing the job's content or trying to harass the employee in various ways until they decide to quit. This can also be challenged in court, but this tactic apparently shifts more of the burden of proof to employees. The most common tactic big companies use in Japan to avoid all this hassle is to just not hire all of their employees as full-time employees. A great chunk of the workforce in Japan nowadays are fixed term contract employees, part-time shift employees or outsourced employees of various types. Edit: I also have to add that from my personal observation, IT salaries in Japan experienced major growth over the last 10 years. YMMV depending on the type of company and the industrial sector, but if we focus on Japanese tech-focused companies (Yahoo, Rakuten, LINE, Mercari etc.) the average yearly salary grew by a 30% or so, and on the high-end you can see international companies and some Japanese tech companies offering senior positions at 20-30 million JPY / year. That's significantly lower than US salary at tech hotspots, but seems quite in line with salaries in Europe. https://japan-dev.com/blog/software-developer-salaries-in-japan-the-ultimate-guide https://japan-dev.com/blog/software-developer-salaries-in-ja...

by canpan 4y ago

majikaja 4y ago

>Culture shift? Maybe one could call it accepting economic reality.. I don't recommend pure development as a career here for people who want to earn big money.

seanmcdirmid 4y ago

A lot of young people want the experience of working abroad, they just want into live in and experience another culture. Not really economic refugees (yet). I did this in china for 9 years and it was a great life experience, although my compensation lagged a bit compared what I could make in the states (now working for google to catch up).

unscaled 4y ago

Firing full-time employees in Japan is quite hard. If the company is taken to court, the burden of proof is quite high. Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, so all that I say here is my personal understanding, from working in Japan, but also from talking to lawyers about this. Firing an employee due to lack of competence or bad performance is permitted by law, but practically unheard of in practice - the bar for proving this is quite high. Firing an employee due to misconduct is possible, but the bar is quite high. Embezzlement, getting kickbacks or getting into trouble with the law (outside your job) are common causes for termination, but I've even heard of cases of embezzlement and kickbacks where the employee in question was demoted instead of being fired. Firing an employee due to the company's financial situation is often referred to as Risutora (corporate restructuring). That's perfectly doable, but the bar again is high. If the company is taken to court, they will have to prove the economic necessity for reducing their workforce and that they tried anything they can before they resorted to firing people. This includes: - Offering a voluntary resignation plan. This means the employee reigns and get some monetary compensation. - Cutting other unnecessary costs besides salaries (otherwise they cannot prove economic necessity) - Selecting the employees that will be fired based an objective and fair criteria, no random culling of 10% of your workforce. Since the bar for all of these is quite high, employers in Japan will more often try to negotiate voluntary resignation plans or (unfortunately quite often) bully their employees into resignation. The bullying tactic involves demotion, changing the job's content or trying to harass the employee in various ways until they decide to quit. This can also be challenged in court, but this tactic apparently shifts more of the burden of proof to employees. The most common tactic big companies use in Japan to avoid all this hassle is to just not hire all of their employees as full-time employees. A great chunk of the workforce in Japan nowadays are fixed term contract employees, part-time shift employees or outsourced employees of various types. Edit: I also have to add that from my personal observation, IT salaries in Japan experienced major growth over the last 10 years. YMMV depending on the type of company and the industrial sector, but if we focus on Japanese tech-focused companies (Yahoo, Rakuten, LINE, Mercari etc.) the average yearly salary grew by a 30% or so, and on the high-end you can see international companies and some Japanese tech companies offering senior positions at 20-30 million JPY / year. That's significantly lower than US salary at tech hotspots, but seems quite in line with salaries in Europe. https://japan-dev.com/blog/software-developer-salaries-in-japan-the-ultimate-guide https://japan-dev.com/blog/software-developer-salaries-in-ja...