The Japanese economy, or what’s left of it
With almost every day bringing more bad news of how the economic situation at both home and abroad is deteriorating, this recent survey from DIMSDRIVE Research into the economy is most timely.
Demographics
Between the 28th or January and the 11th of February 2009 10,233 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.2% of the sample were male, 1.0% in their teens, 12.5% in their twenties, 33.2% in their thirties, 29.9% in thri forties, 16.1% in their fifties, and 7.3% in their sixties. By occupation, 35.2% were full-time regular employees, 19.4% housewives, 11.3% part-time or casual, 7.6% unemployed, 6.9% self-employed, 6.1% contract workers or temps, 3.6% civil servants, 2.8% students, 2.6% freelance, 2.2% senior management or board-level, 0.9% other governmental organisation employees, and 1.4% in other jobs.
We’ve had major changes at the office due to our sales falling off a cliff. Overtime has been cut (this actually is a good thing, IMO), bonuses cut too due to a complex link between overtime and bonuses, management-level pay and expense account cuts, etc, etc. However, the best thing they could do is to address Warm Biz and Cool Biz as more than just a slogan and actually put some effort into ensuring that the air conditioning runs efficiently. How are you doing?