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Comment by tren-hard | Hacker News Reader

So Japanese companies move operations to China because it's cheaper, leaving Japanese jobs behinds. Those businesses profit from cheap labor, emissions, and materials. Now Japan is subsidizing their return to Japan with $2.2 billion.

I really hope the US doesn't adopt this (narrator: they will). It's a slap in the face to tax payers.

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Moving back to Japan is particularly not appealing anyway, Japan is having a severe labor shortage due to rabidly aging population.

And 2.2B is surely not enough to persuade firms anyway on national scale, might work on targeted industry however.

Maybe an attempt to get some of the 500k+ hikikomori back into the workforce could be made. A majority are working age men.

I don't think this is likely. It's a societal problem with no real fix. If people don't feel like they're part of society then the government is unlikely to be able to fix it. It becomes even harder when those people are more or less okay with what their life is like.

While I agree in part that it's not fair, I would argue against the idea that jobs were lost in Japan. Maybe temporarily lost, but in the end economically you end up finding another way to contribute value and be paid. Moreover the companies can't be blamed for taking the most profitable route. It's up to the governments to regulate.

I disagree. Many of the jobs that left Japan and the United States in the 80's and 90's are not coming back - they've already been replaced by robots. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Cashiers, accountants and drivers are all being replaced by robots and automated systems. These jobs are going away and aren't going to be replaced by a comparable entry-level job. This automation is picking up pace now and will only continue.

If that was truly the case it would be cheaper to have manufacturing locally, vs shipping things across the world from China.

Its difficult because japan is not a resource region country. They don't want to reshore production because its costly to source all of the materials they need.

China is not a resource region county for a lot of things it needs produce products either. That is why they import raw materials from places like Africa and are more than happy to help pave roads to make it easier to get things out.

Sorry meant to say resource rich. Its hard to overstate how few resources japan has at its disposal. This caused their aggression during WWII. China has some resources just far fewer than their population plus they are attempting to export their way to affluence which means they are also producing the world's goods, not just goods for the population of china. China is definitely not resource rich but better off than japan in that way.

While this is true, it's become extremely cheap to move raw materials around these days. Shipping ore from Australia to China was at something like $8 a ton (I assume changed due to recent crisis).

I'd expect with Japan internal shipping costs may be a greater problem. They intentionally distributed their industries around the country.

Oh I agree with the view that automation will eventually cause mass unemployment, and is already having an impact. All I'm saying is that at the time that production for these things moved overseas (decades ago), this did not suddenly increase the unemployment rate for the country that lost the jobs. New jobs end up being created.

Japan is a particular case where it actually makes sense to move the production overseas without fear of leaving people behind simply because there isn't a labor force to build anything, no natural resources to use in production, and wonky currency problems due to a disproportionately structured demography.

I pray they do its a long time coming and then put barriers from it happening again

But they can tax the workers who now have gainful employment and make that tax money back (I’d say also saves social benefits, in on JP, the requirements to be on the dole are strict.

it's more of a workaround against WTO rabid crusade against tariffs. can't retaliate for tariffs if they are incentives.

Why? Isn’t it good to bring the jobs back?

I don't think the citizens of Japan should fund that. If Japan wants manufacturing in their country and it isn't appealing enough on its own then it should be done through regulation, not tax payer subsides.

If you do it through regulation, the tax payers would still fund it through increased prices. You also risk business failing, which again the tax payers would pay for.

It's a "socialize the losses, privatize the profits" sort of deal. That said, it may nevertheless be for the best in the long run, given that they can't change the past.

Small amount compared to the trade volumes between Japan and China.

Also just last year in this weird universe, Trump's great Trade War with both Japan and China, actually got both to start looking for ways to increase those volumes as a counterbalance.

The world is just too complex.

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