I don’t think that explains everything. In many other countries “the $Foo is at its weakest in decades, and many Foo workers haven’t had a raise in 30 years” m

I don’t think that explains everything. In many other countries “the $Foo is at its weakest in decades, and many Foo workers haven’t had a raise in 30 years” means young people will be more inclined to emigrate and that isn’t happening in Japan, AFAIK (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_diaspora#Americas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_diaspora#Americas: “The Japanese diaspora has been unique in the absence of new emigration flows in the second half of the 20th century”)