Beginning of April!!

As I wrote last Friday, it looks like the new shakaijin (lit. means 'ppl of the society' = full-time employed workers) have entered their new environments.

This morning as I was commuting, I could see that there were more people on the train than before and I could really feel that a new year was beginning (as explained before, the fiscal/school/work year starts in April). Thanks to the recovering domestic economy, this year the private sectors have employed more workers as compared to the previous several years. Even the well-off companies like for instance Toyota, has increased new employees from 1700 last year to 1900 this year, and held the entrance ceremony in Toyota City in Aichi Prefecture.

The news tells that the rate of senior students with job offers at the point of February 1st 2006 was 85.8% which exceeded that of last year's by 3.2 points. Like I said, the gradually recovering economy plays a big role in the increase of job offerings, but there is a bigger reason behind it.

This is kind of a unique case to Japan, but there is this problem called the "Y2007". Anyone heard of it before?
Just after the War ended, from about 1947 to 1951 there was this phenomenon in Japan called "baby boom". People born during these years are generally called the dankai generation (the babyboom generation) and these dankai generation people are the very actors who played the most significant role in bringing Japan up to one of the largest economic countries in the world.
However, the roles they have played are so big that the loss would no doubt be as big when they retire, and in the following few years most of these people are going to.

Of course, there's this problem of severance pay too, but the loss of working skills are much bigger. The number of workers retiring - people who are in a way professionals and adaptable fighting potentials in each field - is significantly large, large enough to tilt the management of companies especially those with quite a bit of history. So to fill in the biiig hole which will come soon, companies have started to recruit more new employees, and in year 2007, it is said that the numbers of demands (companies) and supplies (newly graduating students) will equal if you won't be too picky about which job you want.

Well this was too much of an abstract description and the reality is much more severe.

So here you go, shinshakaijin! The hole is big and deep, so work hard to fill it in ;-)