Japanese mid-career job seekers
japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into the subject of job opening for mid-career job-seekers. At the start of February they interviewed 330 people between the ages of 30 and 69 employed in the private sector in some sort of personnel-related capacity. 69.4% of the sample was male, 41.5% in their thirties, 38.5% in their forties, 17.9% in their fifties, and 2.1% in their sixties.
As you have no doubt heard, Japanese firms tend to employ people under the assumption by both the employer and employee that it will be a job for life, although recently this trend has been changing, due to both firms wishing to reduce headcount and to people wanting to change. I think it wasn’t until about five years ago that my employer (one of the largest in Japan) first asked people if they wished to take early retirement or redundancy. The founder is regarded as a god of management who I suspect might be turning in his grave (or whatever the equivalent cliché is for the cremated) if he knew that one of the newest factories is mainly employing casual contract labour. I better shut up now before I get sacked…
UPDATE: Thanks to fukumimi for clearing up a rather fundamental mistake in my initial translation!
Research Results
As a side-note, according to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in November of last year (sorry, no translation here) into the attitudes of people in their fifties to work, over 70% wanted to continue working even after they passed 60 years old and the official retiral age.
Q1: Within the last year, has your employer attempted to recruit middle-aged job seekers? (Sample size=330)
Yes (to SQs) 33.6% No 57.0% Don’t know 9.4% Q1SQ1: For what sort of job did your employer attempt to recruit middle-aged job seekers? (Sample size=111, multiple answer)
Votes Percentage Sales, office work, planning 48 43.2% Service, shop work 27 24.3% Technical (electrical, electronic, mechanical) 13 11.7% Technical (architecture, civil engineering) 10 9.0% Technical (foods, medical) 8 7.2% Specialist (consultant, financial, real estate) 6 5.4% Technical (software, networking) 3 2.7% Creative 1 0.9% Other 24 21.6% Q1SQ2: What means did your employer use when attempting to recruit middle-aged job seekers? (Sample size=111, multiple answer)
Votes Percentage Hello Work (government job agency) 68 61.3% Newspaper advertisements, supplements 32 28.8% Company home page 31 27.9% Job information magazine 26 23.4% Employment agency 24 21.6% Pay web site (pay for listings, free to search) 19 17.1% Asked contacts about unadvertised jobs 13 11.7% Free web site (both listings and search) 7 6.3% University or other educational establishments 6 5.4% PR magazine 2 1.8% Other 4 3.6% Don’t know 3 2.7%
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fukumimi said,
February 28, 2007 @ 13:35
They did indeed interview a sample of people working in a recruiting function in the private sector, but the survey was about the recruitment efforts at their employer (efforts which these people were presumably involved in), specifically regarding the recruitment of middle and old aged resources （中高年）.
Thus, the questions are parsed as follows:
Q1. Has your employer made an attempt to recruit middle/old aged people within the last year?
Q2. What job function(s) were the target of said recruitment efforts for middle/old aged resources?
Q3. What media/channels were used in said recruitment efforts relating to middle/old aged resources?
(as such, the “Asked contacts about unadvertised jobs” should be rendered “Did not advertise, but relied on contacts (to recommend people they knew or ask around in their network for interested parties, presumably)
===
The high number of respondents citing their use of Hello Work and newspapers to advertise jobs for the middle/old age resource recruitment seems to point to the fact that more traditional methods are still more effective when looking for older applicants, perhaps an indication of the lack of familiarity the target group has with the internet.
Three in four Japanese workers dissatisfied, most try to improve situation » 世論 What Japan Thinks said,
March 1, 2007 @ 21:13
[…] japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into how people rate the company they work for. The fieldwork was conducted on the 14th of February, with 330 people from their online monitor group successfully completing a private internet-based questionnaire. It’s probably useful to cross-reference this with my recent translation of a survey on middle-age job opportunities. […]
veejay lord maligro said,
April 29, 2007 @ 18:31
applicant applying for work.