What Factors Account for the Growth of the A-Typical Workforce in Japan?

“What factors account for the growth of the a-typical workforce in Japan?”

Japan has steadily risen in stature since the Second World War, to become

a nation known globally for its driven workforce and since the

collectiveness of Japanese culture has been carried over to the companies

(Kashima and Callan, 1994 cited by Selmer 2001), it is now used as a guide

by many other countries - such as America - due to its high productivity, loyalty amongst employees and employers and a general sense of efficiency and innovation in business. However, in 1997 /1998 Japans’ economy suffered a recession due to the Asian Financial Crisis and intense competition from rivals, both nationally and globally, and this has since changed the shape of employment within Japan. It used to be the norm that students were recruited from university or college and that they were expected to be loyal and spend their entire career life working for one company. Since this economic crisis occurred, companies were forced to make countless employees redundant and so the notion of lifetime employment was then unattainable – so instead to save costs temporary or part time employees were used in order so that the companies could become reactive to current market trends in the future (Weathers 2001). Ever since this, the profile of an atypical worker or part time worker was created and according to Sato (2001) it’s when there isn’t a continuous employment relationship with only one company and even then the employment is only on a part time basis. Sato hence saw that atypical employment was “a new way of working” for Japan and since then it has increased in popularity due to many factors that I consequently will now explain.

However, throughout this essay, there are 3 main views that dominate the argument and they should be briefly explained. Sato (2001) believed that atypical employment was a free choice made by a person and saw it as Japan changing with the modern world, Osawa (2001) showed the discrimination that women faced in the business world and what they are subjected to in their treatment when in the workplace, whilst Weathers (2001) saw that there were less opportunities available to a part time worker than if they were a full time regular employee, so each has different and influential view on whether Japan is a society that can adapt to the increase in part time workers and less full time employees.

A recent article by Akemi Nakamura for The Japan Times in April 2007 showed in a graph how much part time labour has increased in Japan and also how many labour laws will now have to change too. As the graph (labeled Graph 1):

Graph 1 (taken from http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070405f1.html accessed 29th October 2007)

shows, part time employment has increased to over 10million employees, where as full time workers have seen their levels remain constant at a steady value of 34 million employees, despite the overall level of workers in the workforce increasing to over 54 million employees. This is due to many factors, one of which being the acceptance of having women in the workplace. Many women today in Japan make up a large percentage of the part-time work force having increased from 13.5% in 1975 to over 71.6% in 2000 according to a recent seminar by Tominaga (2007). The main suggestion to explain this increase, however, was considered by Sato (2001), who proposed that women sought to increase their household income via a short working week and also because they wanted to increase their generally responsibilities, part time work was the only way that employers would employee them due to the fact that married or unmarried women in Japanese society were generally considered to be undesirable owing to the fact they would either leave the company due to childbirth, they were considered inferior and there was a high probability that they would leave the company earlier than their make counterparts (Wakisaka 1997). However, men use part time work too as a way to develop the necessary skills and experience that they need to be able to obtain the actual job that they desire, as Sato (2001) pointed out:

“26.6% of young male part time workers hope for a different mode of employment in the future”

And because men will find it easier to be promoted than women,