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Japan’s labor market is tight, and higher wages may be needed to retain workers

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Re: Japan’s labor market is tight, and higher wages may be needed to retain workers

#131

Post by 6t6t6t6 »

magic_beans wrote: post #121
nihonde wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to trivialize real gender prejudice, but there is no shortage of Japanese women who are in a dire search for a convenient marriage to a busy man who can give her children, financial support, and otherwise leave her alone. Even among my friends, whom I consider to be highly intelligent and evolved people, this is a perfectly normal aspiration.

Is this a cultural thing? Do women in Japan not aspire to fall in love?

Japanese people are, in general, extremely pragmatic when it comes to relationships. And the pursuit of stability is a really important aspect in japanese lifes.

Re: Japan’s labor market is tight, and higher wages may be needed to retain workers

#132

Post by 6t6t6t6 »

0xbear wrote: post #54

Yeah, I do get contacted by Japanese recruiters, and their comp in my field is pretty laughable by US standards. That said, the same applies to all of Europe as well. People literally seem to be making one third of what they'd be making in the US if they were any good.

I don't know your field, but developers in Tokyo make (in USD) between 50k and 100k a year. This is a salary equiparable to what could be made in Europe and most parts of the US. It's even quite higher than what is paid in South Europe.

Re: Japan’s labor market is tight, and higher wages may be needed to retain workers

#134

Post by richardknop »

wst_ wrote: post #125
richardknop wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know living costs are "enormous". But if you make 3 times more money as you'd do in Berlin, it's still a much better deal. The point I was making even in top cities in Germany (Munich for example) where living costs are also enormous, salaries are not very competitive compared to SF/NY or London (this only applies to contracting, permanent salaries are low in London).

So be fair and compare to the contractor salary in Tokyo as well. I can assure you that, despite being lower, salaries are quite close to London ones. A 3 time difference is a myth. Unless you are going to compare London engineers to Tokyo combini part time worker.

Yes I meant contractor salary is 3x more than permanent salary for a very senior software engineer in Germany for example. The idea behind this comparison is that you don't really have contractor market in Germany being so active as in London.

In London contractor market is very active and large so you can go from contract to contract basically without gaps and function basically as if you had a perm job but with much higher salary.

In Germany contracts are more sparse and I don't think it's easy to pull off a full time contracting there. The rates are also quite a bit lower (at least from emails I get from time to time about contracts in Netherlands & Germany) so there's that as well.

And of course, Tokyo is much much worse in this respect. I know some people who live in Tokyo so I know that being a programmer there is pretty bad.

Re: Japan’s labor market is tight, and higher wages may be needed to retain workers

#135

Post by wolfgke »

richardknop wrote: post #134
wst_ wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So be fair and compare to the contractor salary in Tokyo as well. I can assure you that, despite being lower, salaries are quite close to London ones. A 3 time difference is a myth. Unless you are going to compare London engineers to Tokyo combini part time worker.

Yes I meant contractor salary is 3x more than permanent salary for a very senior software engineer in Germany for example. The idea behind this comparison is that you don't really have contractor market in Germany being so active as in London. In London contractor market is very active and large so you can go from contract to contract basically without gaps and function basically as if you had a perm job but with muc…

> In Germany contracts are more sparse and I don't think it's easy to pull off a full time contracting there. The rates are also quite a bit lower (at least from emails I get from time to time about contracts in Netherlands & Germany) so there's that as well.

A rule of thumb in Germany: If you earn double the amount as a contractor as you would as an employee this is about the same standard of living. In other words: If you don't really earn a lot more as a contractor than as an employee, it is not worth the hazzle.

Another problem for contracting are the laws concerning Scheinselbständigkeit (fictitious self-employment) - cf. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheinselbst%C3%A4ndigkeit - which make it really difficult for companies to contract someone for a longer time.

Re: Japan’s labor market is tight, and higher wages may be needed to retain workers

#136

Post by wolfgke »

dmoy wrote: post #130
wolfgke wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I look at descriptions about the living costs/housing prices in SF and its environment, I think that with, say, EUR 40k one has a better life in Germany (except the really expensive metropolitan areas in Germany as Munich, Stuttgart etc.) than with US$ 100k somewhere around SF.

Right, but if a senior at amagoowhatever is making 350k usd, and a senior in Berlin/münchen is making 70k usd, it's a very, very different conversation. I meant literally five times as much, not a figure of speech...

München is very expensive - if you don't earn a lot of money when living there it is not worth taking the job. On the other hand in Berlin it is much simpler to live cheaply (though the prices for apartments in Berlin have skyrocketed in the last years).

Re: Japan’s labor market is tight, and higher wages may be needed to retain workers

#137

Post by BearGoesChirp »

nihonde wrote: post #126
magic_beans wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a cultural thing? Do women in Japan not aspire to fall in love?

Of course many do aspire to a fulfilling romantic life. I'm always a little bit amazed, however, when perfectly normal people admit that they want to marry for status, stability, and other purely pragmatic reasons. (It's not just women who express this, by the way.) Marriage is pretty complicated here, at least to my outsider eye. I know quite a few middle aged women who openly have steady (usu. older) boyfriends, bu…

>I know quite a few middle aged women who openly have steady (usu. older) boyfriends, but these boyfriends go home to a wife who barely speaks to him anymore, and yet refuses to divorce him.

>convenient marriage to a busy man who can give her children, financial support, and otherwise leave her alone.

This is likely going further off topic at this point, but between these two comments, why would a guy even want to get married? Even when one factors in a boost in pay/social status, this looks like a bad deal (and that is taking a very pragmatic look at it, but we are talking about marriages of convenience).

Re: Japan’s labor market is tight, and higher wages may be needed to retain workers

#138

Post by nihonde »

BearGoesChirp wrote: post #137
nihonde wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course many do aspire to a fulfilling romantic life. I'm always a little bit amazed, however, when perfectly normal people admit that they want to marry for status, stability, and other purely pragmatic reasons. (It's not just women who express this, by the way.) Marriage is pretty complicated here, at least to my outsider eye. I know quite a few middle aged women who openly have steady (usu. older) boyfriends, bu…

>I know quite a few middle aged women who openly have steady (usu. older) boyfriends, but these boyfriends go home to a wife who barely speaks to him anymore, and yet refuses to divorce him. >convenient marriage to a busy man who can give her children, financial support, and otherwise leave her alone. This is likely going further off topic at this point, but between these two comments, why would a guy even want to ge…

To be fair, there are healthy, happy marriages here. My point was that the boomer generation devolved into some conventions that seem unacceptable from a Western perspective. You can't underestimate the impulse to act in the larger group's interest in Japan because it is a very real factor that can almost fully subordinate an ego. I don't really consider it better or worse than the "me first" philosophy of self-realization in the West.

Re: Japan’s labor market is tight, and higher wages may be needed to retain workers

#139

Post by richardknop »

wolfgke wrote: post #135
richardknop wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I meant contractor salary is 3x more than permanent salary for a very senior software engineer in Germany for example. The idea behind this comparison is that you don't really have contractor market in Germany being so active as in London. In London contractor market is very active and large so you can go from contract to contract basically without gaps and function basically as if you had a perm job but with muc…

> In Germany contracts are more sparse and I don't think it's easy to pull off a full time contracting there. The rates are also quite a bit lower (at least from emails I get from time to time about contracts in Netherlands & Germany) so there's that as well. A rule of thumb in Germany: If you earn double the amount as a contractor as you would as an employee this is about the same standard of living. In other words:…

Yes there have been changes like that in UK as well (IR35) aimed at making it difficult for companies to keep hiring contractors for a longer time.

First problem with that was that public sector IT in the UK depends on contractors so they have shot themselves in the foot (already many public agencies started relaxing the rules and working around IR35 to be able to hire anybody).

Also most contractors usually change contract every 6-12 months so it's not a problem. You don't work at a single company for longer than that (1 year 11 months is maximum, after that you get in trouble because of IR35).

> A rule of thumb in Germany: If you earn double the amount as a contractor as you would as an employee this is about the same standard of living

Well what if it is 3 or 4 or even 5 times more. With top market contracts the rates can be really good. If a company urgently needs to hire somebody skilled to come in and do some firefighting you can negotiate a very high daily rate for 6 months contract.

Also keep in mind you pay lower taxes as contractor as most of your income is via dividends. And you can also expense a lot of things you buy if it can be justified as cost of running business.

Re: Japan’s labor market is tight, and higher wages may be needed to retain workers

#140

Post by closeparen »

FussyZeus wrote: post #128
closeparen wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raising prices destroys demand. It's not immediately clear that 5 well employed people and 5 unemployed people are preferably to 10 poorly employed people. If the 5 who would be unemployed have some superior alternative, why aren't they doing it already? Or would you say they should be forcibly unemployed to combat their laziness in looking for better work (which you apparently think exists)?

Then maybe demand should be lower? If your business can't operate without paying people slave wages, you have no business being in business. Or, far more likely, the CEO needs to make a few million less so the people who operate his business can EAT.

I'm start from the (perhaps naive) assumption that our intention here is to make people better off.

Whose life is better if the business doesn't exist?

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