Quote:
Originally Posted by dogsbody70
Is that a fact? I thought that they were supposed to be extremely hard working and for long hours. Have things changed?
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They work long, long hours but do they work efficiently or especially hard? Well let's just say in my experience here, no they don't. On the whole I'd say many companies here employ way more people than you would find in similar sized companies in the west.
I'd almost go so far to categorize Japan as a socialist country in a weird sense. It's not just the government though looking after the people it's companies hiring far more people than what is needed to get the job done efficiently. Companies here unlike western companies trying to cut costs and improve efficiency generally don't lay off large portions of their workforce. They negotiate lower pay across the board, they don't pay their executives ridiculous wages compared to the average worker and basically do all they can to keep as many people employed as possible. Although Japan may seem to outsiders as some sort of amazingly technologically advanced country they rarely seem to go for technological solutions that would displace a whole lot of workers from their jobs. I've even seen people in government offices using an abacus!
Obviously not all companies are like this but many of the big old ones are. so you have large amounts of workers turning up for work and spending 12+ hours sitting around the workplace with little more than a couple of hours of genuine work to get done each day. They'll sit at their desk all day, barely chatting to each other looking as though they are busy but in reality getting very little done. Still they have a job and if they continue this until retirement the company will generally look after them pretty well with a nice pension pakage.
So I'd say many companies here are actually terribly inefficient but hey you have a society where most people are still employed (even if many are paid pretty poorly) and you don't hardly have any of the crime and issues caused by unemployment and poverty found in many western countries.