JAPANESE WORKERS CONTINUE TO SEEK NEW CHALLENGES AND BETTER WORK CULTURE IN 2020

Making peace with the ongoing wage stagnation, jobseekers in Japan continue to prioritise seeking new challenges over salaries, followed closely by management and work culture, finds the latest Asia Salary Guide report by leading recruitment experts Hays. 

This year marks the 13^th edition of the annual Hays Asia Salary Guide, which remains a definitive snapshot of salaries for positions across industries in Asia. The salary and hiring insights, including a thorough market overview of business outlooks, salary policies and recruitment trends, are based on survey responses from close to 6000 working professionals located in the five Hays operating markets in Asia; namely China, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia.

Seeking new challenges remains paramount

Despite reports of falling wages, salary packages are still not the top priority for jobseekers in Japan. Results of the survey showed that the majority of respondents in Japan (56 per cent) cited ‘seeking new challenges’ as the reason why they were looking for a new employer – making it their top choice for the fourth year in a row. This was followed by salary or benefit package (54 per cent), with the third top choice being a tie between ‘lack of career progression’ and ‘management style & company culture’ (36 per cent). While ‘lack of career progression’ has been the third most popular choice for four years in a row, this is the first time that ‘management and company culture’ has climbed up to rival it, showing its growing importance amongst jobseekers.

When it comes to retention, however, better pay is the first pick for respondents in Japan. The majority (41 per cent) said they would stay with their current employer for the salary or benefit package, followed by ‘work-life balance’ (38 per cent) and ‘new challenges’ (33 per cent). This is a change from last year, where work-life balance took the top spot (45 per cent), followed by salary (42 per cent).

Japanese workers remain active and certain about their skills

While respondents in other regions grow increasingly uncertain about the relevancy of their skills, those in Japan are more confident than ever. A large majority (72 per cent) said they believed their current skills would still be in demand five years from now – a number that stood significantly higher than the Asian average (64 per cent). This may be due to Japan’s digitalisation journey being more measured and gradual as compared to the rest of the region, which is ramping up efforts to counter economic uncertainty.

Interestingly, while the candidate market in Japan has been known to be passive, results of the survey show differently. 36 per cent of respondents in Japan are actively looking for a new job, making them the highest Asian demographic to do so after Malaysia (52 per cent). While the majority (45 per cent) are still passive by not actively looking but staying open to new opportunities, this is consistent with the Asia average (45 per cent). The reason for high numbers of active jobseekers may be due to low satisfaction in pay as only a little over half of employees in Japan (58 per cent) were satisfied or very satisfied with their pay – a number that tied them with China for being the least satisfied region after Malaysia (54 per cent).

Richard Eardley, Managing Director for Hays Japan commented, “Japan’s complex labour market has been seeing a number of significant changes in recent years, which has put the focus back on employee welfare and satisfaction. The statistics in our report are well reflective of these ongoing work trends, including falling wages, the growing importance of work culture and flexible work hours – particularly  among younger demographics – as well as the continuous need for career progression in a country where lifetime loyalty at a company or role was the norm until recently. Overall, these are extremely positive developments that can point employers the right way and lead to more opportunity and welfare for workers in Japan.”

To download your copy of the 2020 Hays Asia Salary Guide, please click here.

About Hays

Hays plc (the "Group") is a leading global professional recruiting group. The Group is the expert at recruiting qualified, professional and skilled people worldwide, being the market leader in the UK and Asia Pacific and one of the market leaders in Continental Europe and Latin America. The Group operates across the private and public sectors, dealing in permanent positions, contract roles and temporary assignments. As at 30 June 2019 the Group employed 11,500 staff operating from 265 offices in 33 markets across 20 specialisms. For the year ended 30 June 2019:

– the Group reported net fees of £1,129.7 billion and operating profit (pre-exceptional items) of £248.8 million;

– the Group placed around 81,000 candidates into permanent jobs and around 254,000 people into temporary assignments;

– 18% of Group net fees were generated in Australia & New Zealand, 27% in Germany, 23% in United Kingdom & Ireland and 32% in Rest of World (RoW);

– the temporary placement business represented 57% of net fees and the permanent placement business represented 43% of net fees;

– Hays operates in the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Chile, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UAE, the UK and the USA