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Japan Workers' Changing Attitudes
The success of corporations in Japan is attributable to
the
remarkable motivation of its workers. Also behind this
corporate
prosperity is the workers' strong sense of loyalty to and
identification with their employers. While many theories
have
evolved to explain the extraordinary attitude of Japanese
workers,
perhaps the most noteworthy is that of personnel
management. This
view holds that loyalty to the company has developed as a
result of
job security and a wage system in which those with the
greatest
seniority reap the highest rewards. Such corporate
structure
presumably fostered not only a determined interest in the
company
but also a low percentage of workers who changed jobs.
During the postwar economic reconstruction, the
backbone of the
labor force was, of course, made up of people born before
World War
II. These people grew up in a Japan that was still largely
an
agriculturally based economy and had little material
wealth.
Moreover, they had suffered the hardships of war and had
accepted
hard work as a part of their lives. In the late twentieth
century,
these people were being replaced by generations born after
the war,
and there were indications that the newcomers had
different
attitudes toward work. Postwar generations were accustomed
to
prosperity and were also better educated than their
elders.
As might be expected, these socioeconomic changes have
affected
workers' attitudes. Prior to World War II, surveys
indicated that
the aspect of life regarded as most worthwhile was work.
During the
1980s, the percentage of people who felt this way was
declining.
Workers' identification with their employers was weakening
as well.
A survey by the Management and Coordination Agency
revealed that a
record 2.7 million workers changed jobs in the one-year
period
beginning October 1, 1986, and the ratio of those who
switched jobs
to the total labor force matched the previous high
recorded in
1974. This survey also showed that the percentage of
workers
indicating an interest in changing jobs increased from 4.5
percent
in 1971 to 9.9 percent in 1987.
Another indication of changing worker attitudes is the
number
of people meeting with corporate scouts to discuss the
possibility
of switching jobs. Corporations' treatment of older
workers also
affects attitudes: there are fewer positions for older
workers, and
many find themselves without the rewards that their
predecessors
had enjoyed.
Data as of January 1994
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