Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

CEO behind Japan’s best-performing stock says his secret is raising salaries

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 266 posts

Re: CEO behind Japan’s best-performing stock says his secret is raising salaries

#171

Post by unscaled »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #50

Some context on the japanese job market from what I've seen: - The entire japanese job market's wages are depressed[0] - In 2019, pressure had to come from the PM (not the local unions) to raise the minimum wage to 1000 yen/hour (~$9/hour)[1] - Engineers are underpaid here, possibly more so than the EU in relation to the US. This is amplified for japanese companies (whether "black"[1] or not) - With nationalized heal…

Is Super Salaryman really a thing?

I've only ever heard of this TV series[1], about a regular salaryman who becomes a superhero.

Crossing the 1000 man (10 million) yen barrier is a thing though, I just don't know if it has a special name.

[1] https://asianwiki.com/Super_Salaryman_Mr._Saenai

Re: CEO behind Japan’s best-performing stock says his secret is raising salaries

#172

Post by sokoloff »

taurath wrote: post #71
NalNezumi wrote: post #35

While establishing a "cause & effect" here seems very hard, from my personal experience working in software field in Japan, I think the winning concept here is actually the combination of removing middleman and paying good salaries. Japan is very very behind in IT/digitalization compared to most western countries. This doesn't just mean it's behind in product portfolio and quality, but that perception of software eng…

Shhh, buddy, he’s saying raising salaries here we don’t need to give alternate ideas ;)

Removing useless middlemen allows for raising salaries of the producers.

Re: CEO behind Japan’s best-performing stock says his secret is raising salaries

#173

Post by IQunder130 »

tralarpa wrote: post #135
f6v wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate?

I am not OP but I have noticed in several European countries that many companies see software engineering (and IT in general) as a "necessary evil". Even in SMEs selling automation solutions, the perception is that the "real" work is done by the mechanical/electrical engineers and the marketing department, while the software engineers are just...support people, aren't they? And everybody has learned a little bit of p…

>But the program that controls that machine there, well, it can be written by some Germanistics student who can't find a job in his original field

I think you'll find that the people who write control software are mostly Electrical Engineers.

Re: CEO behind Japan’s best-performing stock says his secret is raising salaries

#174

Post by unscaled »

unscaled wrote: post #169

Looking around the internet, it seems Shift Inc. is paying around 4.5-5.0 (full range: 3.8-7.8) million JPY / year total comp. This is about 40k-45k USD/year. It's somewhat better than what engineers would get on a black companies and local consulting companies and perhaps on par with some of the traditional blue chip companies. But this doesn't come anywhere close to what a software engineer can earn on the highest…

Checking again, their official recruitment page[1] is actually listing "example salaries":

These are higher, although probably not representative: Security Engineer (in their 40s): 13 million yen Automation Architect (in their 40s): 10 million yen Q.A. Engineer (in their 30s): 9 million yen.

These salaries are on par with the top paying local companies, but it's quite suspect none of them are registered on a third party site. They might be rather new.

[1] https://recruit.shiftinc.jp/entry/mid_career/job/

Re: CEO behind Japan’s best-performing stock says his secret is raising salaries

#175

Post by ex_amazon_sde »

yocheckitdawg wrote: post #64
wait_a_minute wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very interesting. So a person can raise a larger family on an engineer’s salary and be happy in Japan? An American expat.

One thing I have been wondering about from the outside is if part of what keeps Japanese lifestyle's relatively cheap is that the population is so homogenous (& seemingly law-abiding) that there doesn't appear to be the same emphasis on living in a "good area" as in other countries for personal security reasons. I wonder if this acts as a somewhat hidden subsidy to life whereas for people in many Western countries it…

> there doesn't appear to be the same emphasis on living in a "good area" as in other countries for personal security reasons

This is common mostry in the anglosphere. In many other countries there is no such difference.

Re: CEO behind Japan’s best-performing stock says his secret is raising salaries

#176

Post by [deleted] »

eecc wrote: post #167
tralarpa wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not OP but I have noticed in several European countries that many companies see software engineering (and IT in general) as a "necessary evil". Even in SMEs selling automation solutions, the perception is that the "real" work is done by the mechanical/electrical engineers and the marketing department, while the software engineers are just...support people, aren't they? And everybody has learned a little bit of p…

More specifically: I'm also a cross-professional, having obtained a degree in Electronic Engineering and learned software engineering out of personal interest (obviously with significant knowledge gaps.) Yet, I still notice I'm patronizingly put down by "the grown ups" in management that cultivate an obvious disdain for the "techies" and "engineers" (as in "the steam engine operator shoveling coal into the furnace"),…

[deleted]

Re: CEO behind Japan’s best-performing stock says his secret is raising salaries

#177

Post by ZephyrBlu »

nsonha wrote: post #62
hardwaresofton wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At many Japanese colleges, graduating with ~$40k/year at an office job is considered success after undergoing "seishoku katsudou" which the junior year college hunting process, as long as the company is of good repute. As japan is very homogenous culture wise relative to other countries, it's very common for people to generally start families before ~25/by the end of their 30s. $40k is a salary under which doing this…

> if engineers in America are ridiculously overpaid, or why do you only compare to Japan and EU? American engineers get paid more than anyone else (except for EU outliers). I make slightly above 100k in Australia, it's a bit tight with the housing situation and cost of living but it's liveable. Cost of living in the US is lower except for maybe healthcare but engineers get companies pay for them anyway. I don't have…

> I make slightly above 100k in Australia, it's a bit tight with the housing situation and cost of living but it's liveable

100k USD (So ~130k AUD)? Even if that's 100k AUD, it's a bit odd to hear that it's "tight" when you're on 100k. I didn't think Aussie's COL was that high.

Re: CEO behind Japan’s best-performing stock says his secret is raising salaries

#178

Post by megameter »

dunefox wrote: post #157
pezezin wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are off by an order of magnitude, 1 million yen is ~9k USD. That's a ridiculously low salary here, fine for a college kid with a part time job ("arubaito") at your local konbini, but not much else. Maybe you got confused because China, Japan and Korea group numbers by powers of 10 000 ("man")? Now a 1000-man (10 million yen, around 90k USD or 75k EUR) salary would be amazing, the average Japanese salary is 3 mill…

> a college kid with a part time job ("arubaito") at your local konbini Is the japanese word for a part-time job really the german word 'Arbeit'? Amusing.

It's in keeping with the German influences on the school system, I think, since that's where the "baito" is most likely to come up.

Re: CEO behind Japan’s best-performing stock says his secret is raising salaries

#179

Post by hardwaresofton »

unscaled wrote: post #171
hardwaresofton wrote: post #50

Some context on the japanese job market from what I've seen: - The entire japanese job market's wages are depressed[0] - In 2019, pressure had to come from the PM (not the local unions) to raise the minimum wage to 1000 yen/hour (~$9/hour)[1] - Engineers are underpaid here, possibly more so than the EU in relation to the US. This is amplified for japanese companies (whether "black"[1] or not) - With nationalized heal…

Is Super Salaryman really a thing? I've only ever heard of this TV series[1], about a regular salaryman who becomes a superhero. Crossing the 1000 man (10 million) yen barrier is a thing though, I just don't know if it has a special name. [1] https://asianwiki.com/Super_Salaryman_Mr._Saenai

Yeah I really struggled to find anything about it, but it's a term I've used with people here... reaching out to ask some friends if maybe I got the term wrong.

Re: CEO behind Japan’s best-performing stock says his secret is raising salaries

#180

Post by nsonha »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #177
nsonha wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if engineers in America are ridiculously overpaid, or why do you only compare to Japan and EU? American engineers get paid more than anyone else (except for EU outliers). I make slightly above 100k in Australia, it's a bit tight with the housing situation and cost of living but it's liveable. Cost of living in the US is lower except for maybe healthcare but engineers get companies pay for them anyway. I don't have…

> I make slightly above 100k in Australia, it's a bit tight with the housing situation and cost of living but it's liveable 100k USD (So ~130k AUD)? Even if that's 100k AUD, it's a bit odd to hear that it's "tight" when you're on 100k. I didn't think Aussie's COL was that high.

it's USD, with mortgage and the need to save and invest, not tight in the literal sense.

COL is higher than most countries in the world. It being a remote continent, that should not come as a surprise. Average house price in Melbourne is now AUD 1m or USD 775k

Post reply on HN