With the resurgence of economic activity after the pandemic, coupled with the "2024 problem" and the decline in the working-age population due to the declining birthrate and aging population, the shortage of manpower in Japanese companies is becoming more and more serious.
In early April, the Tokyo Shoko Survey conducted a survey of more than 4,600 companies, and 69.3% of the companies had a shortage of regular employees, a worse situation than the same period last year (66.5%).
In terms of company size, 77.6% of large companies with a capital of 100 million yen or more are understaffed, and 68.4% of them are small and medium-sized enterprises.
In terms of industries, 100% of the road passenger transport industry has a shortage of regular employees, which means that there is a shortage of companies in the whole industry, and 92.8% of the accommodation industry has also been hired.
However, due to the acceleration of digitalization due to the epidemic, the demand for paper media has decreased, and the proportion of full-time employees in printing-related industries has reached 24.1%. The personnel gap between industries is widening, and the reallocation and mobility of talents have become an urgent issue.
By industry, the construction industry had the highest percentage of employees underemployed (84.4%), followed by the transportation industry (77.9%) and the information and communication industry (76.3%).
The construction and transportation industries, which began to impose overtime caps in April, have exacerbated the already shortage of workers, while the information and communication industry has been attributed to Japan's aggressive promotion of DX digitalization, which has caused a chronic shortage of manpower.
In contrast, 38.7% of companies have a shortage of non-regular employees, which is relatively stable.
From the perspective of industry, the most scarce people are in the retail industry (48.9%), followed by agriculture, forestry, fishery and mining (48.3%), and service industry (48%).
In addition to the retail and service industries, which already rely heavily on informal workers such as temporary and part-time workers, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and mining, which have a clear distinction between peak and off-season, are also understaffed.
Although the yen exchange rate has been "tumbling" recently, hitting a 34-year low against the dollar and falling to its lowest level since 1993 against the yuan, Japanese wages are still somewhat competitive in Asia.
According to the statistics of 967,000 recruitment data by relevant agencies, the average hourly wage of part-time jobs in Japan's three major metropolitan areas in March was 1,188 yen (about 55 yuan), an increase of 45 yen from the same month last year, the second highest level in history.
During this period, due to the personnel changes in the new year, companies generally expand recruitment, and this year, due to the impact of the spring fight, the salary increase rate is also relatively high.
In terms of occupational categories, clerical (average hourly wage of 1,272 yen) and specialized category (average hourly wage of 1,388 yen) both set new highs.
At present, the national average minimum wage in Japan is 1,004 yen per hour, and it has exceeded 1,100 yen in Tokyo and Kanagawa, which are relatively economically developed, and 1,000 yen in eight places, including Osaka, Saitama, and Aichi.
The Japanese government has set a goal of raising the average minimum hourly wage to 1,500 yen by the mid-2030s, and the joint plan of labor organizations plans to gradually raise it to the level of 1,600~1,900 yen by 2035.
The joint submission of an application to the Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare requested that the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare discuss the increase in standards in June this year and strengthen the monitoring system for companies.
In addition, due to the large differences in minimum wage standards between regions, a large number of labor flows from local areas to cities, which affects local economic development, and the Union also requires the government to take measures to reduce regional disparities.
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