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Career Success Not Worth Seeking For
- What's happening in Japan?
2010/11/26
Recently, Japanese people, especially, young people, started to throw away a traditional
thinking, career success. They do not want to get promoted in companies.
Here is the rough summary of an article which reports about it:
Why don't More and More Japanese People Want to Get Promoted?
Recently, it is said that the number of Japanese people who do not want to get ahead
or promoted has increased.
Private life is more important than organization.
"Those who hate to get promoted seem to strongly think that they do not want to do
jobs except for ones they are in charge and to have extra responsibilities." said, a
representative of a business management company. "Japanese people start to think more of
themselves as an individual rather than roles in organizations."
Traditionally, many Japanese women valued coziness and satisfaction in job more
than career success. "There were many men who thought about their company or Japan
economy through a macro view in the past. However, many men have started to think
highly of themselves or their family which is more individual concept. Men are getting
like women."
Lifelong employment system has gone away and bankruptcy or layoff is getting real
recently. Therefore, it will be natural that Japanese men start not to stick to the
old concept of career success. Companies are desperate to reduce cost, but they will
not increase salary for workers although workload has been going up. Under these
circumstances, many Japanese people have started to lose the meaning of career success.
Although there are a variety of reasons, I personally guess that most simple reason
is that return is much less than burden. Once people get ahead, their responsibilities
should increase. However, in recent Japan, salary tends not to catch up with their titles.
Some companies just try to give "good name" for young people in order to give motivation
and satisfaction. However, unpractical gift started not to work here in Japan.
In addition, the author of this article cited above mentioned that lifelong employment
system has gone away, but it is not true. It still remains in a convenient way for companies
and older generations, and it has been tightly used in government organizations.
Companies in Japan (or Japan government) seem to be ignoring young generations. Young
generations are totally losing motivation, mostly. This will be very dangerous for the
future of Japan.
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