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Comment by aucisson_masque | Hacker News Reader

> Japan’s chronic labour shortage – a symptom of its low birthrate – has also made employers more determined to retain staff, even if it means intimidating them into staying

Holy moly. Me dumb would think if there is labor shortage then employers would compete to offer the best wage, work ethics, working conditions, and so on.

That's basically the 'hand of the free market', people will go where they have better condition. Those who retain staff through fear are in for a rough ride, you can't go against human nature even in society like Japan that emphasize abnegation so much.

In other countries what they would do is push for more immigration so that they can remain in dominant position, but thankfully for the Japanese they don't have that issue.

I bet that Japanese labors condition will drastically increase in the coming 10 years.

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>I bet that Japanese labors condition will drastically increase in the coming 10 years.

That sounds too optimistic to me. The same problem (shrinking young workforce and hellish working conditions) has been going on for a couple decades now with no end in sight. Reform seems impossible; improvement will only come when the big companies collapse and are replaced by companies run by the younger generation who don't see indentured servitude as a virtue. Because no way is anyone in the older generation going to willingly give up their feudalistic power over their employees, they'd rather see their company go bankrupt.

This looks similar to labor shortage of nursing in other countries. Somehow paying more and increasing work conditions just isn't an option.

Case of Austria.

Why do they have conscription? Because the alternative service is to work as an unpaid laborer in things like nursing and so on...

Could you elaborate on this?

Probably similar to how it used to be in Germany. The many conscientious objectors to army service were doing useful work for very little money.

I think that Wikipedia article will explain this to you better than I could.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zivildienst_in_Austria

Also, referendum in 2013...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Austrian_conscription_ref...

https://www.dw.com/en/austria-bucks-trend-with-conscription-...

"Many voters were apparently swayed by warnings from health organizations and charities, which had said they would not be able to cope without the 14,000 young men who opt to carry out community service each year.One of them was Alfred Körbel, a 74-year-old from Vienna.

"Civilian service is very important for our society," he told DW. "Organizations like the Red Cross and other health care providers would not be able to keep going without such support."

There was a big generational gap in voting trends, with older people more likely to support conscription. Heidenkamp explains that there was "a blend of different motives" that led to the outcome in favor of conscription."

In short, "we need to keep it as otherwise who would do that" instead of paying more :<

It's not unpaid. Payment is pretty low though, around 300 bucks per month. Also it's 50% longer than military and you're forbidden from using or owning a gun for 15 years because pacifism is the only accepted reason to opt out of military service.

which also includes that you can not apply for a hunting license or join the police force.

Because it really is not. Health care in general is large cut for gdp in any developed system. So if you substantially increased wages and number of workers. You would also need to either run higher budget shortfalls. Or bump taxes a bit. And voters really are not going to take these, even if nurses would get paid.

in the US, it just means billionaires would have a slight cut to their hundreds of billions of profit every single year that comes from deliberately hamstringing an industry and causing millions of unnecessary deaths

You're not allowed to solve anything in the US in a way that causes already rich people to make slightly less profit. All other options will get explored but never that one.

When they cut the teachers' wages And I was not a teacher I stayed quiet

When they underpaid the nurses And I was not a nurse I looked away

When they devalued the caregivers And I was not a caregiver I remained silent

Then when my own profession faced cuts There was no one left To stand with me

Who is "they"?

The people who set the prices of labour based on the productivity of the worker. The Global Council of Price Fixers, who if not but for, we could take all the profits of the engineers and redistribute them to the teachers. So that we can make sure every $1 an engineer could've turned into $100, a school can turn it into 50 cents.

Nazis, traditionally. Typing it out makes the comparison feel weak.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...

So are nazis cutting the wages of teachers, nurses or caregivers? Are the nazis coming for your profession?

Are these nazis in the room with us?

But you didn’t stay quiet, you were telling them to learn to code.

In this context, the final line would be:

Then when my children needed a teacher, and I became sick, or old, there was no one left to support me.

Not allowing immigration and simultaneously having a large decline in birth rates, thus a worker shortage is largely what caused Japan's economy to be in the stagnant state its been in for the past 20 years. Before that, everyone thought Japan would be the world economic powerhouse.

The US economy has boomed, largely in part due to the rise of software and technology, and most of the big firms in that space were started by young people and immigrants, things Japan is choosing to have less and less of.

the US economy has boomed largely in part due to money printer brrrrrrrrrring for a very long time. it isn't particularly booming right now with no ZIRP.

immigration didn't save UK and Germany, and it will not save Japan either. no one in their sane mind will look at Western Europe and say 'yep, we want the same thing here. we want to be minorities in our own cities, because That's A Good Thing'.

> yep, we want the same thing here. we want to be minorities in our own cities

where in Western Europe is this currently happening? Which cities?

It's not, of course.

London, Birmingham and God only knows how many other cities in the UK. London in particular is the most obvious example of why accusations of paranoia and alarmism are either malice or stupidity - the city has changed from being over 95% aboriginal to <50% aboriginal in just 40 years. and it didn't even end there - now it's below 40%.

and when all the other cities in UK, France, Germany, Sweden and other "wir schaffen das" countries change as dramatically, the people who are currently saying "it isn't happening" will change their tune to "it's actually a good thing"

The US economy was booming before the ZIRP began though, and that was on the strength of the technology industry.

Immigration does fix two particular problems though, especially targeted immigration of skilled workers rather than refugees:

1) It balances an aging, shrinking population which usually stifles innovation and depresses wages (both of which are happening in Japan right now).

2. It increases the talent density of industries. Talented people exist in every country and culture in the world. Attracting them to your country with a wage higher than their home wage is a good way to snowball a competitive industry (because these talented people make things successful leading to more opportunities for more talented people).

Not necessarily. The Roman emperor Diocletian's response to labor shortages was to revoke civil rights: tie peasants to the land and make many urban jobs hereditary.

Japan also has a stagnant economy, so companies can't afford to get into bidding wars over talent and offer lavish salaries and benefits like they do in the US.

Maybe it is stagnant because companies does not need to compete for staff?

Doubtful. National-wide problems don't face budget problems like a struggling family would. There's always some money around, but certain people on influential positions want to take it all -- that's all there is to it really.

Or in other words, companies absolutely can bump pays, even with something not huge like 5-10% and they would still be fine, probably better even. But we can't have that when the CEO needs another yacht, or whatever it is that those empty people always chase. And it's somehow never enough.

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