Software engineers and designers are already in high demand. Robotics are getting close to having wider industrial/consumer applications. Once Korea and China's factory wages go up high enough and the price of automation lowers, they'll start to invest heavily in robotics (ala Foxconn).
For a long time more than half the industrial robots in the world are in Japan.
Foxcon recently announced plans to build 1 million industrial robots, which will essentially double the number in the world[1].
I've noticed some people in the thread saying the Japanese programmers aren't good enough to program robots. That simply isn't the case - they lead the world in industrial robotics.
[1] http://www.gizmag.com/foxconn-gears-up-to-build-industrial-r...
Software's an uphill battle with the culture they have- although perhaps embracing advanced robotics, and the accompanying sophisticated software demands, might help change that.
Imagine an old-fashioned craftsman who takes immense pride in working with his hands on something like blades, clockwork or fine jewelry. That sort of mentality is built into their culture.
In short, I'd not write them off because of perceived cultural mores. It's more than likely that your view is either wrong, or misjudged.
You are right though that as things grow dire, folks will be more willing to take risks.
Japanese companies usually suck at software. The emphasis has always been on the hardware -- one of the most obvious examples is the cellphones, which have always had extremely good hardware but very poor software and almost no applications to speak of. My 3-year-old phone has an 8MP camera, infrared transmission, TV, and I can use it as a train ticket, but the browser is so bad I can't even use Reddit's mobile version and it can't render HN comment pages with more than 100 or so comments.
Youtube and Facebook are not Japanese companies, after all. The local equivalents, Mixi and Niconico, are Japanese-only and have zero interest in internalization. Some companies like Rakuten are trying to reach overseas, but it's not an easy fight...
1) massively ageing population 2) technology infra is 1st class