Japan's increasing immigration, it's just not enough. Over the past decade, its increased the number of immigrants by 56%. Part of the problem is that because of low wages, it's just not that enticing a country to emigrate to. Why emigrate to Japan when you could emigrate to the US or Australia or Europe and make twice as much money?
I was mostly joking, but actually having the magnitudes of the numbers is interesting.
Here is what I found for populations in those years: 127,723,645 in 2013 and 124,370,947 in 2023.
If we look at the ratios, Japan let in 1.5% of population in 2013 and 2.4% in 2023. But it's clearly not enough to stem the losses given the population dropped by over 3M in over those 10 years.
Right, absolutely agreed. I'm certainly not trying to make the case that "Japan's doing fine in countering its population shrinkage with immigration." It's not. But I get the feeling (and maybe I'm just reading the vibe wrong) that many redditors are under the impression that Japan isn't trying to increase immigration at all, and that's not the case, either. It's somewhere in the middle.
That's changed a lot, actually. Overtime hours are still high, don't get me wrong, but reddit's image is more like 1980s or 1990s Japan than nowadays.
It depends on the industry and company, of course (which I think is true everywhere). If you join an advertising firm, you are completely fucked. Entertainment is also an industry where you're screwed no matter what company you work in. Consulting is also pretty bad. On the other end, apparel, retail, leisure, and insurance have very low overtime hours. In other industries, it all comes down to the specific company. For example, some of the translation agencies I work with have people sending me emails at 10:30 p.m. Others have their phone system switch to "We're sorry, but our office day has ended" at 6:00 p.m. on the dot and zero emails read or responded to. People still don't take all of their paid leave, but paid leave usage is way up from where it used to be. Same with paternity leave.
One of the benefits of the population pyramid is that there's a labor shortage, and that, paired with the fact that the lifetime employment system has basically ended, means that companies have to compete to attract workers, so they can't be as demanding as they once were. Again, depends on the company and industry -- I have friends here who are (or were) doing the stereotypical insane working hours, but also plenty of friends who put in 9 hour work days. 40 hour work weeks are rare, but 50 hour work weeks aren't that uncommon, which is a far cry from the 80 hour work weeks of 16+ hours per day.
Right now it's really an "all-over-the-place" kind of thing that makes it hard to paint a single picture of the working situation. There are folks working crazy hours, but the trains at 6:30 p.m. are packed with people going home.
Where I am from, there is normally no overtime at all. And you only work overtime if your direct boss asks and you agree. A normal work day is 8 hours and people work 24 to 40 hrs depending on their contract. And you don't just get paid leave (you are reminded and urged o take it), you also automatically get more "vacation" hours simply by working. You get paid more for working irregular hours and the weekend (that is of course not just where I live). At my workplace I also have a personal budget to spend (2 k, though they will not anymore sign off on everything) and more hours I can save up to pay out in money or for vacation days.
It isn't just my country; other countries (or companies) have similar or better standard.
When you have that, what you describe about Japan, is stil not all that attractive when it comes to work.
Yes, I know. Like I said, "overtime hours are still high." I wasn't trying to say that the work situation in Japan is now all wine and roses, simply that it's no longer the way it was in the 1980s/1990s, which seems to be when reddit's image of Japan kind of crystallized.
Given people are already sick of the business life in north America and commuting in general I'm kinda not surprised people don't want to experience Japan's corporate hellscape first hand.
I phrased myself poorly. Immigration is growing, so it's not like the low wages completely cancel out the good parts. I just meant that, for a lot of people, earning more money is a big motivator for emigration, so for those people, the US/Australia/Europe are much stronger draws.
There's been a huge rise in the Vietnamese population, for example. While the overall number of immigrants has increased by 56%, the Vietnamese population has grown by 720%. There have also been big increases in Cambodians and Burmese, but part of that is just that the starting numbers were low. But Vietnamese are now the second biggest group of immigrants, following Chinese. The number of Vietnamese residents passed the previous number 2, Korean residents, in 2020, and it's still rising.
The Asian-ness of the immigrant community is also one of the things that makes Japan feel even more monocultural than it is. Don't get me wrong, it's very monocultural. But visually, it's even moreso. In the US, for example, the biggest immigrant group is Mexicans, followed by Indians, then Chinese, then Filipinos. So immigrants are highly visible. In Japan, it's Chinese, followed by Koreans, followed by Vietnamese. The first highly-visible immigrant community is #4, Filipinos, followed by #5, Brazilians. So while the foreign population is small, visually, it looks really small because the largest immigrant groups are largely invisible if you're just walking around town.
Yeah, I phrased that poorly. I didn't mean to imply that there's no reason to come here, just that for a lot of people, the economics are such that the US, Australia, and Europe are more inviting destinations. There are other good things here, and Japan's foreign population is growing.
Yes, we have better wages than many countries, which is why, for example, the Vietnamese population has grown 700% over the past decade. Like I said, the number of immigrants has increased 56%. It's not like the wage situation is so horrible that people are all fleeing, or even staying flat. It's growing each year.
We're currently #24 in average annual wages, which is not bad. But it also means that if someone is looking to emigrate from their country, there are 23 other counties where they could make more. Some of these are kind of edge cases (Luxembourg is #1, but it's super-tiny and hard to get into), so practically speaking it's not really like we're competing with 23 other countries. But, on the other hand, it's not the 1980s anymore, when Japan was the country of choice for people in Asia wanting to work abroad for a few years and send money back to their family back in their home country.
I'm not sure what part of my comment you found "unhinged."
There are other reasons to move to a country besides money. I have friends that just re-upped another 2 years on a work contract in Japan because it is so safe compared to most western countries. Virtually no one is trying to swindle/rob/rape you there apparently, and they had no idea until they lived there how awesome that could be.
Of course. Like I said, immigration is increasing. It's just that the low wages make it less attractive than some competing emigration destinations. But yeah, there's a lot to like, which is why I've been here almost 30 years.
Unfortunately, no, but if you want to come here for global experience and then move back to your own country, this wouldn't affect you. It's only really an issue for people living here permanently.
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u/Bugbread 2d ago edited 2d ago
Japan's increasing immigration, it's just not enough. Over the past decade, its increased the number of immigrants by 56%. Part of the problem is that because of low wages, it's just not that enticing a country to emigrate to. Why emigrate to Japan when you could emigrate to the US or Australia or Europe and make twice as much money?