is the term for

permanent employment Permanent employees work for an employer and are paid directly by that employer. Permanent employees do not have a predetermined end date to employment. In addition to their wages, they often receive benefits like subsidized health care, paid vac ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. It was extremely common in major Japanese companies beginning with the first economic successes in the 1920s through the

Japanese post-war economic miracle The Japanese economic miracle refers to Japan's record period of economic growth between the post-World War II era and the end of the Cold War. During the economic boom, Japan rapidly became the world's second-largest economy (after the Unit ...

until after the bursting of the

Japanese asset price bubble The was an economic bubble in Japan from 1986 to 1991 in which real estate and stock market prices were greatly inflated. In early 1992, this price bubble burst and Japan's economy stagnated. The bubble was characterized by rapid acceleration ...

, the Lost Decade and the following

economic reform Microeconomic reform (or often just economic reform) comprises policies directed to achieve improvements in economic efficiency, either by eliminating or reducing distortions in individual sectors of the economy or by reforming economy-wide polici ...

History

''Shūshin koyō'' starts with an event called Shinsotsu-ikkatsu-saiyō (

simultaneous recruiting of new graduates is the Japanese business custom in which Japanese companies hire new university graduates en masse. This custom was practiced in South Korea until a 2010 age discrimination law banned the practice in South Korea. In 2018 the Japan Business F ...

) in which a large cohort of recent university graduates all enter a company at once. It gave Japanese workers the important feeling of

job security Job security is the probability that an individual will keep their job; a job with a high level of security is such that a person with the job would have a small chance of losing it. Many factors threaten job security: globalization, outsourcing, ...

as part of

Japanese management culture Japanese management culture refers to working philosophies or methods in Japan. It included concepts and philosophies such as just in time, kaizen and total quality management. Managerial style The Japanese term "hourensou" (also rendered as " ...

, and in turn, elicited a high degree of company

loyalty Loyalty, in general use, is a devotion and faithfulness to a nation, cause, philosophy, country, group, or person. Philosophers disagree on what can be an object of loyalty, as some argue that loyalty is strictly interpersonal and only another h ...

. A high demand for the few available

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

s forced companies to bind these employees to the company. The collapse of the

and the following

crisis A crisis ( : crises; : critical) is either any event or period that will (or might) lead to an unstable and dangerous situation affecting an individual, group, or all of society. Crises are negative changes in the human or environmental affair ...

in the 1990s did not weaken the practice. It was still even used in Japanese

small business Small businesses are types of corporations, partnerships, or sole proprietorships which have fewer employees and/or less annual revenue than a regular-sized business or corporation. Businesses are defined as "small" in terms of being able to ap ...

es. Some critics of lifetime employment hoped that with

Junichiro Koizumi Junichiro Koizumi (; , ''Koizumi Jun'ichirō'' ; born 8 January 1942) is a former Japanese politician who was Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2001 to 2006. He retired from politics in 2009. He is ...

's administration, lifetime employment would become less common. They hoped that

neoliberal economics Neoliberalism (also neo-liberalism) is a term used to signify the late 20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War. A prominent fa ...

policies would result in

privatization Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...

, firing of old and expensive workers, and the rise of

part-time Part-time can refer to: * Part-time job, a job that has fewer hours a week than a full-time job * Part-time student, a student, usually in higher education, who takes fewer course credits than a full-time student * Part Time Part Time (styliz ...

jobs. Due to the long

recession In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction when there is a general decline in economic activity. Recessions generally occur when there is a widespread drop in spending (an adverse demand shock). This may be triggered by various ...

and the

financial crisis of 2007–2010 Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fina ...

, some companies discontinued the practice of ''shūshin koyō'' and implement mass

layoff A layoff or downsizing is the temporary suspension or permanent termination of employment of an employee or, more commonly, a group of employees (collective layoff) for business reasons, such as personnel management or downsizing (reducing the ...

s. Thus, there was less job security as ''shūshin koyō'' was challenged. However, as noted by Takahashi (2018): "in the case of regular workers, the practice of long-term employment is maintained, in the sense that both employers and labor unions still seek to avoid making dismissals or voluntary retirement solicitations

References

External links

The State and Change in the "Lifetime Employment" in Japan: From the End of War Through 1995Japan’s ‘employment for life’ myth
*

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

br>In Japan, Secure Jobs Have a Cost
*

br>Japan Strives to Balance Growth and Job StabilityIs the Japanese employment system degenerating?
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shushin Koyo Employment in Japan Japanese words and phrases Japanese culture