251–260 of 354 posts
If they forced all the folks working sixty-hour weeks down to thirty, and hired the unemployed to fill the gaps, the country would be healthier.
What would that do to wages?
If they forced all the folks working sixty-hour weeks down to thirty, and hired the unemployed to fill the gaps, the country would be healthier.
What would that do to wages?
With that boost, people could work less and they could afford to pay them more. It's a win win situation, but it's hard to change views when it comes to work.
Folks want to believe that working more is better, but really it's about quality over quantity.
We'd see crazy economic benefits if we stopped being traditionalists about work and started following the science / data.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They probably have something to do with that. At the moment, for Japan has a tiny handful of iron mines [0]. So if they want to produce a steel widget, they have to justify someone transporting the iron either through the Chinese mainland or up the coast, past a lot of people who are learning to do wonderful things with steel. They import a lot of coal from Australia but China has relatively easy access overland from…
Japan in the 1980 didn't have any better access to natural resources than it has today, yet it didn't have the labor market problems described in the article. Many, many other countries don't have a lot of natural resources and are not having these problems.
Your counterargument is that they didn't have a problem in 1980, when they had less people and the same amount of land. I can't disagree with that, but it isn't relevant.
> Many, many other countries don't have a lot of natural resources and are not having these problems.
They have the 3rd largest economy in the world. It goes US, China and then Japan. 30% higher GDP than the next contender, Germany. If there are any non-linear economic effects at all between size and labour market, Japan is going to find them first.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of the debt is held by the Japanese themselves. They control their own currency. It isn't likely to be a problem for them.
It is going to be a problem because in an inflationary monetary system, you need to give out loans at a constantly increasing rate in order to pay off the debt of the previous generation. If the new generation is not growing fast enough, they will not be able to afford to take out enough new debt to buy assets from the previous generation (thus allowing the previous generation to pay of their debts from the sale or l…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is going to be a problem because in an inflationary monetary system, you need to give out loans at a constantly increasing rate in order to pay off the debt of the previous generation. If the new generation is not growing fast enough, they will not be able to afford to take out enough new debt to buy assets from the previous generation (thus allowing the previous generation to pay of their debts from the sale or l…
I’m wondering what you mean by “real estate prices are so high in Japan”? Relative to other countries? Or some point in the past in Japan? My assumption is that declining population is leading to surplus housing and declining real-estate prices in most of the country. And even in the Tokyo area where demand is still strong, homes are still more affordable than in other large cities like New York and London.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've found Meetup to work very well for getting out of the house. Except a lot of the meetups where I live either haven't come back or they are "virtual". :(
I was thinking before Corona, last year was very good for me. Once you realize social media is mostly fake validation seeking behavior you can decide if that's what you want . Ends up being tons of stress and mental anguish for nothing at all. I'll say without a doubt people are absolutely meaner via social media vs real life. I recall when I lived in Chicago how everyone in certain areas knew each other. Act like a…
HN is somewhat unique in not fostering or tolerating that sort of thing. Sure, sometimes a comments gets downvoted, because it expresses an unpopular view, but not so much if it is well thought-out & presented. And it's extremely rare to come across comments that are mean or otherwise unproductive without it quickly going dead. It's no Utopia of internet peace & tranquility, but you can have a real conversation.
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The illusion of control and the ability to make a difference. It's why tech-minded people are notorious for trying to find clean technical solutions for messy social/political problems. It's comforting to feel you can reduce a vast societal problem to something you can tinker with in your living room and solve, and doing so also gives you a feeling of power and control.
Yes, I agree we should collectively work on real solutions to real problems. Clearly you understand that we need to encourage more tech workers to think deeper about it. Why not do this more positively? Being negative about how this forum can work hard to improve social tech is unproductive.
The article clearly identifies the source of this challenge: HR culture I’ve worked in HR in the US. To say it is unbearably broken doesn’t begin to cover it. Japan’s rigid hiring rituals are specific but I’ve encountered quite a bit of rigidity in HR culture in the US as well. As we see nearly daily here on HN, the “filter process” HR uses is highly resistant to change and based on traditions that are objectively us…
>The article clearly identifies the source of this challenge: HR culture I don't think so. I don't think the problem here is companies struggling to find the right people. It seems to me that companies have slashed hiring. There are too few regular job positions and too many people seeking them.
However, liquidity in the labor market is rarely well-understood.
This article specifically addresses people who are never able to enter the workforce.
In the US the data is stark - there are literally hundreds of thousands of positions that are never filled, despite millions of job seekers.
To oversimplify with one major hiring filter - most jobs require X years of experience in Y narrowly-defined industry/region/tool/skill.
Liquidity in the labor market is the only answer to this problem - to get experience you have to be able to get a position in the first place, often in a role unrelated to where you end up.
Economists see jobs as “widgets.”
Of course, we all know we spend most of our time doing none of the things listed on the job we originally applied for (or were tested for in interviews).
Supply/demand explanations mask the fact that most work today is fluid. Getting people into the workforce creates economic growth. The barrier to that growth is a broken HR system.
It doesn’t seem to be, at first, a root cause that is significant enough in size to hobble a whole economy.
Until you consider that nearly every employer has the same issue.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What would that do to wages?
It'd probably do wonders for their economy, given the results from that Microsoft test where they only worked 4 days a week ( https://www.npr.org/2019/11/04/776163853/microsoft-japan-say... ). With that boost, people could work less and they could afford to pay them more. It's a win win situation, but it's hard to change views when it comes to work. Folks want to believe that working more is better, but really it's a…
But that's just my econ 101 knowledge.