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I think I've said this here before, or maybe it was elsewhere, but the hours thing is just a symptom; abusive management tactics and terrible efficiency are the real issue, and changing hours will do basically nothing to change that. As an aside I now have to spend like an hour a week logging all my goddamn hours of work, and will need to leave work early some days because new we actually have to enforce their stupid arbitrary loving overtime rules. So, congrats, this whole thing will do nothing to fix the issues and is a huge pain in the rear end for me. Also there's no way for the government to track hours worked at home and I believe as per the overtime laws it doesn't count, so now people will just be overworked at yelled at in their lovely company dorms instead of the office.
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Apr 3, 2017 13:05
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I think this is a good example of how far Japanese civil society has to progress in terms of child rearing
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Apr 3, 2017 13:29
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I wonder why so many more women are bothered by people bringing on strollers than men?
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Apr 3, 2017 13:34
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Or people w/ NIMBY syndrome regarding the building of daycares due to the noise the kids make. It's hard to blame the government when it's a wider societal issue 
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Apr 3, 2017 13:37
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Ah yes, the horrible cacophonous laughter of children between 9 -5. Side note: What seems to have reignited this thread was a query about why it wasn't more active. May I suggest that if people are posting Japanese language stuff they also include a brief rundown in English for the non-Japanese speakers? That'd definitely make it more accessible / might ignite more discussion. I say this from experience of being shut out of China threads because I miss half the conversation.
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Apr 3, 2017 13:49
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mystes posted:I wonder why so many more women are bothered by people bringing on strollers than men? Are separate cars for women still a thing? I'd imagine most strollers would end up on those...
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Apr 3, 2017 13:53
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DiscoJ posted:A 100-hour cap isn't much progress. My coworkers husband is a deputy producer at a Japanese TV station bureau in DC and he logged 400 hours of overtime last month This month they're mandating he takes two days off Progress I guess, even if it is for budgetary reasons
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Apr 3, 2017 13:59
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Ron Darling posted:My coworkers husband is a deputy producer at a Japanese TV station bureau in DC and he logged 400 hours of overtime last month So he slept an average of 2-3 hours a day every day for a month and never took a day off? Edit: and by slept I mean he did so at the office or a work site, as 400 hours overtime would be literally ~13 hours a day of OT, not leaving time for transit, or showers, or other hygiene. LimburgLimbo fucked around with this message at 14:45 on Apr 3, 2017 |
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Apr 3, 2017 14:08
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Truga posted:Are separate cars for women still a thing? I'd imagine most strollers would end up on those... They are, although in general it's only during rush hour that they are reserved for women.
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Apr 3, 2017 14:32
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LimburgLimbo posted:So he slept an average of 2-3 hours a day every day for a month and never took a day off? He's a super nice guy but from what I hear that wouldn't be unusual, so most likely yeah He gets home super late at night and usually is on his computer emailing Tokyo or getting ready for the next day - he's one of those people who just can't be without work for whatever reason. Plus, he's also gone on weekends and travels a lot sometimes so you have to factor that in as well
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Apr 3, 2017 14:57
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Ron Darling posted:He's a super nice guy but from what I hear that wouldn't be unusual, so most likely yeah As I recall from Japanese overtime laws travel isn't included, so you literally wouldn't factor that in, officially, thought his company may let him claim that as pay time. Also if he was doing 13+ hours of overtime a day he wouldn't get in late so much as he'd come home at about 4-5am, fall in bed for a little while and then leave.
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Apr 3, 2017 15:11
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Ron Darling posted:My coworkers husband is a deputy producer at a Japanese TV station bureau in DC and he logged 400 hours of overtime last month Do you think that maybe you've gotten the number wrong? 400 hours overtime isn't feasible. That would be 7:30am-9pm, 7 days a week, without any of those hours counting as regular working hours. If somebody is also working a 40 hour week on top of this, then it would be more like a working time of 3:30am-12midnight.
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Apr 3, 2017 15:42
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Undead Hippo posted:Do you think that maybe you've gotten the number wrong? 400 hours overtime isn't feasible. That would be 7:30am-9pm, 7 days a week, without any of those hours counting as regular working hours. If somebody is also working a 40 hour week on top of this, then it would be more like a working time of 3:30am-12midnight. It's possible - I didn't ask for a paystub or anything but that's the number she gave me all I know is it's some absurdly large number
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Apr 3, 2017 16:12
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Undead Hippo posted:Do you think that maybe you've gotten the number wrong? 400 hours overtime isn't feasible. That would be 7:30am-9pm, 7 days a week, without any of those hours counting as regular working hours. If somebody is also working a 40 hour week on top of this, then it would be more like a working time of 3:30am-12midnight. Ron Darling posted:It's possible - I didn't ask for a paystub or anything but that's the number she gave me Overtime is overtime. 400 hours of overtime means you're working 140 hours/week or something thereabouts. It's theoretically possible in that it's less than 24 hours/day but it's really not realistically feasible. It's a gross exaggeration or misunderstanding. He could also quite possibly be just powernapping 3-4 hours a day at the office and claiming that as working hours.
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Apr 3, 2017 16:18
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Kenishi posted:Japan doesn't have the 80's style "go drink with boss after work" mentality anymore. Instead they just work longer.
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Apr 3, 2017 16:44
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It's entirely possible that it was 400 hours total, which while still  is a little more credible.
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Apr 3, 2017 17:00
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Toshimo posted:It's entirely possible that it was 400 hours total, which while still Now actually, THAT might be more plausible. I also have an innate tendency to mishear things, so you may be right on this - didn't mean to turn this into a JAPANESE OVERTIME thread LimburgLimbo posted:Overtime is overtime. 400 hours of overtime means you're working 140 hours/week or something thereabouts. That's what our correspondents do. I'll frequently go to ask a question and find them dead asleep in their chairs. It's kind of funny and yet sad because they're up until 1-2-3 in the morning fielding calls from editors and doing rewrites. We also have a sleeping room (with a massage chair!) but hardly anyone uses that anymore. The worst was during the TPP (lol RIP) conclusion in Atlanta. Holy hell I don't think the correspondent I went with slept for more than 2 hours a night during that entire week
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Apr 3, 2017 18:15
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LimburgLimbo posted:I think I've said this here before, or maybe it was elsewhere, but the hours thing is just a symptom; abusive management tactics and terrible efficiency are the real issue, and changing hours will do basically nothing to change that. shrike82 posted:You have to wonder how much the government can "lead" the public in accepting foreign immigration even if they wanted to open up the spigot. I haven't looked at public opinion polls but given the endemic racism towards Chinese (who'd likely be the primary source of immigrants), I'm not sure if there's a solution that's palatable to the Japanese public.
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Apr 3, 2017 20:21
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Any reformed work visa would need to have a path to citizenship or it will do little to address the demographics problem. Just like if you have unenforced labour laws, you will not create a work-life balance that people will actually attempt to start families with.
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Apr 3, 2017 22:21
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LimburgLimbo posted:Overtime is overtime. 400 hours of overtime means you're working 140 hours/week or something thereabouts. The reactions to the claim of 400 hours strike me as competitive as much as incredulous. That is why you aren't going to see this fixed anytime soon. Because in lots of companies, Japanese ones in particular, there simply isn't any other metric to get yourself noticed.
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Apr 3, 2017 22:55
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Ron Darling posted:Now actually, THAT might be more plausible. I also have an innate tendency to mishear things, so you may be right on this - didn't mean to turn this into a JAPANESE OVERTIME thread (I finally ended it for obvious reasons.) Even then 400 in a month sounds pretty high but it's not out of the question. It means you're basically living at your job which in the newspaper biz in Japan I'm sure does happen.
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Apr 3, 2017 23:42
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Stringent posted:The reactions to the claim of 400 hours strike me as competitive as much as incredulous. That is why you aren't going to see this fixed anytime soon. Because in lots of companies, Japanese ones in particular, there simply isn't any other metric to get yourself noticed.
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Apr 3, 2017 23:46
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Kenishi posted:Again, the racism issue is something really only something present in the older generations, but those also end up being the generations that happen to vote the most, so.... I think the government could easily make a few changes that would make it easier for anyone to come into Japan without inciting too much backlash. They could do it under the guise of simplifying the immigration process and reducing the amount of "wasted time" on the part of immigration officers. They could basically do away with the work visa types. Right now when you apply for a work visa you also have to specify a type such as Engineer, Humanist, or Instructor. These types all have their own mini-requirements that have to be met in order to get a visa to work in an industry usually. Simply do away with them and make a single "Work Visa." Next, grant work visa's to any company/person that can show they are hiring and paying someone a livable wage. The "credentials" of the person receiving the visa shouldn't matter if the company is already willing to hire and pay them; there is no reason immigration should play the role as a secondary "interviewer" in this process. These simple changes would make it easier to get visa's for pretty much anyone and would simplify the application process enough that Visa lawyers should no longer be needed to apply for visas. The greatest source of friction with respect to immigration will likely be low wage immigrant laborers (e.g., farmhands, conbini/coin operated eatery staff, retail, factory workers, nurses), both in terms of sheer numbers as well as the gap between cultural norms between the China, Philippines, and Japan (or ingrained racism related to the Asian races pecking order). I doubt enough educated professionals will want to move to Japan given the low pay and lovely working conditions to push the immigration needle.
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Apr 4, 2017 02:03
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shrike82 posted:The greatest source of friction with respect to immigration will likely be low wage immigrant laborers (e.g., farmhands, conbini/coin operated eatery staff, retail, factory workers, nurses), both in terms of sheer numbers as well as the gap between cultural norms between the China, Philippines, and Japan (or ingrained racism related to the Asian races pecking order). I doubt enough educated professionals will want to move to Japan given the low pay and lovely working conditions to push the immigration needle. Yeah, I've read a lot of the reason the DPJ and the Japanese left-liberalism more broadly is not more pro-immigration is because of its basis in labor unions which are opposed to it
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Apr 4, 2017 02:41
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shrike82 posted:The greatest source of friction with respect to immigration will likely be low wage immigrant laborers (e.g., farmhands, conbini/coin operated eatery staff, retail, factory workers, nurses), both in terms of sheer numbers as well as the gap between cultural norms between the China, Philippines, and Japan (or ingrained racism related to the Asian races pecking order). I doubt enough educated professionals will want to move to Japan given the low pay and lovely working conditions to push the immigration needle. I think the low wage jobs are a good place to work to start filling a potential void for labor. At the very least, it allows Japanese in those positions to potentially move into better paying positions when there starts to be a labor drain in higher positions. As was mentioned in another post, as long as they also provide a path to citizenship for some of these people, getting labor for these low income positions probably won't be too hard. As to attracting more educated professionals. I think many people with a degree won't have any issue with moving to Japan. The only nation(s) I can see this possibly being an issue with honestly are Americans in the IT/Health/Legal/Finance sector, where the pay tends to be over-inflated compared to the rest of the world. If you compare the IT sector, for instance, from Europe, India, China, etc; Japan's IT sector pay isn't that far off. Working conditions are still a sore point though depending on which countries you are comparing Japan against, but I continue to believe that will improve as time goes on and get more in line with the rest of the world. If the language barrier disappeared a little (via English becoming more prevalent in business) and the requirements for experience/degrees on many work visa's vanished, I think you would see the immigration needle start to move quite significantly.
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Apr 4, 2017 03:27
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I agree with you in the abstract but practically speaking - a) The recent populist backlash against immigration in the West underscores the problem of 'foreigners for cheap labor, Japanese get better paying jobs'. b) My experience is largely with finance but I feel comfortable extending that to IT - there's limited capacity in those sectors in Japan for non-Japanese speakers. And I suspect the language barrier becomes more severe once you move out of those two sectors to other major industries. I would love to see Japan embrace English but it hasn't happened and I don't see any macro trend pointing to a cultural shift there. Rakuten is on the bleeding edge, entering its seventh year of 'Englishnization' and you still get the sense it's an executive decision by Mikitani and not something that has become engrained in the corporate culture. c) Again, it could be due to our disparate personal experiences but I don't see the legal burden of getting a work visa being the main barrier for professionals. It's getting companies to the point where they're willing and actively recruiting for foreign professionals. Put another way, is there a problem we're seeing with companies trying to hire foreigners and not being able to get work permits? I would say no.
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Apr 4, 2017 05:27
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Well I think an important thing to keep in mind is that the problem of labor isn't a present issue, its something that will become considerably more noticeable in 2-3 decades. Issues with language barriers for instance may decrease in that time frame. There has already been some pushes in the government to try and improve the English level in Japan as a whole (I'm incredibly skeptical about the success of those at the moment). Most of these pushes though are really for the ramp up for the 2020 Olympics, but its easy to imagine the momentum from that will continue long after the Olympics. I don't expect Japan to ever be on par with say France or Germany in terms of English skill, but by time 2040 or 2050 rolls around, the language barrier may have vanished. Though, I guess its also possible half the jobs will be handled by robots or AI, so maybe its all a non-issue.
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Apr 4, 2017 05:54
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Bitcoin become legal tender in Japan I don't follow Bitcoin very well, but this seems like an interesting change of events. I know there are quite a few startups in Japan that are building products and services around Bitcoin so this probably aids them well. I wonder if major companies like Rakuten will get in on the action now. quote:Along with the recognition of Bitcoin and other digital currencies is the stipulation that profits from trading of those currencies may be considered as "income from business activities or miscellaneous income." This makes Bitcoin subject to various taxes, including capital gains tax. Nonetheless, the buying and selling of digital currencies will no longer be subject to the 8% consumption tax common to traditional currencies in Japan. This change will take effect on July 1 of this year. Edit: Not "legal tender", "valid payment." Legal tender would require that stores accept it.
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Apr 4, 2017 06:04
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shrike82 posted:
That's disappointing. At least a silverlining in America is that most of the younger generation is (at least seems to be) lefter leaning. punk rebel ecks fucked around with this message at 08:27 on Apr 4, 2017 |
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Apr 4, 2017 08:21
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Kenishi posted:Well I think an important thing to keep in mind is that the problem of labor isn't a present issue, its something that will become considerably more noticeable in 2-3 decades. Issues with language barriers for instance may decrease in that time frame. There has already been some pushes in the government to try and improve the English level in Japan as a whole (I'm incredibly skeptical about the success of those at the moment). Most of these pushes though are really for the ramp up for the 2020 Olympics, but its easy to imagine the momentum from that will continue long after the Olympics. I don't expect Japan to ever be on par with say France or Germany in terms of English skill, but by time 2040 or 2050 rolls around, the language barrier may have vanished. Though, I guess its also possible half the jobs will be handled by robots or AI, so maybe its all a non-issue. Robots ain't gonna replace nurses. Even if they somehow developed the capacity for such a role (lol) it'd be magnitudes more expensive than just using a hypothetical existing labor force that might exist nearby. Like maybe in a chain of islands southish and westish A big flaming stink fucked around with this message at 08:44 on Apr 4, 2017 |
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Apr 4, 2017 08:41
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A big flaming stink posted:Robots ain't gonna replace nurses. Even if they somehow developed the capacity for such a role (lol) it'd be magnitudes more expensive than just using a hypothetical existing labor force that might exist nearby. Like maybe in a chain of islands southish and westish
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Apr 4, 2017 10:22
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Robots aren't going to massively replace service industry jobs until more people get comfortable with the idea of loving robots. And there are plenty of agricultural jobs that it's almost impossible to replace with robots, because people are willing to do quite literally backbreaking labor for pennies. So yeah, maybe in a century we'll have automation durable and cheap enough to make that an option, but not now.
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Apr 4, 2017 10:40
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Mulva posted:Robots aren't going to massively replace service industry jobs until more people get comfortable with the idea of loving robots. And there are plenty of agricultural jobs that it's almost impossible to replace with robots, because people are willing to do quite literally backbreaking labor for pennies. So yeah, maybe in a century we'll have automation durable and cheap enough to make that an option, but not now. https://60secondstatistics.com/for-manufacturing-and-retail-companies-using-automated-robots-is-cheaper-than-actual-slave-labor-would-be/ This poo poo isn't as far away as many people think.
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Apr 4, 2017 10:53
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Mulva posted:Robots aren't going to massively replace service industry jobs until more people get comfortable with the idea of loving robots. In the agricultural realm, if I can build a machine that needs 1 person to help position it/set it up but can then harvest, till, and/or process crops; I've probably cut my labor force by 50-75% right there.
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Apr 4, 2017 13:10
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Mulva posted:Robots aren't going to massively replace service industry jobs until more people get comfortable with the idea of loving robots. Wait, what service industry are you thinking of here?
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Apr 4, 2017 13:33
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Stringent posted:Wait, what service industry are you thinking of here? He's saving himself for the sexbots.
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Apr 4, 2017 13:38
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Mulva posted:Robots aren't going to massively replace service industry jobs until more people get comfortable with the idea of loving robots. And there are plenty of agricultural jobs that it's almost impossible to replace with robots, because people are willing to do quite literally backbreaking labor for pennies. So yeah, maybe in a century we'll have automation durable and cheap enough to make that an option, but not now. http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/09/07/437285894/4-labor-intensive-crops-farmers-wish-they-had-robots-to-harvest quote:While machines have replaced human hands for a lot of farm jobs — the harvesting of tomatoes for processing, the cutting of lettuce and spinach, the shaking of almond trees to make the nuts fall to the ground — many fruit, vegetable and nut farmers still rely heavily on people to plant, maintain and harvest their crops. Japan has probably automated its farming less, but if there really aren't enough people there won't be any choice. On the other hand, once these jobs disappear, they don't come back. A future where there simply isn't any requirement for unskilled labor is also quite alarming. Additionally, automating agriculture will probably actually make underpopulation issues worse. mystes fucked around with this message at 13:52 on Apr 4, 2017 |
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Apr 4, 2017 13:48
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Or, just start exporting vast amounts of food for hilariously cheap to africa. They sure can use it.
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Apr 4, 2017 14:31
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Yeah but you can't hire robots to entice sexless, single 20 something salary-men into maid cafes. Akiba would collapse!
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Apr 4, 2017 15:04
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Since artificial wombs are (probably) going to be a thing eventually we'll probably be seeing sexbots with artificial wombs which is going to create a whole new series of ethical, legal, and just plain weird issues
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Apr 4, 2017 15:35
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