is the term for permanent employment in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. It was extremely common in major Japanese companies, beginning with the first economic successes in the 1920s. It continued to be a defining characteristic of Japanese corporate culture through the Japanese post-war economic miracle, but its prominence waned 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 the country's economy stagnated. The bubble was characterized by rapid acceler ...

, the Lost Decade and subsequent economic reforms.

History

''Shūshin koyō'' starts with an event called Shinsotsu-ikkatsu-saiyō ( simultaneous recruiting of new graduates) 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, and in turn, elicited a high degree of company

loyalty Loyalty is a Fixation (psychology), devotion to a country, philosophy, group, or person. Philosophers disagree on what can be an object of loyalty, as some argue that loyalty is strictly interpersonal and only another human being can be the obj ...

. A high demand for the few available

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

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

and the following

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

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 a small number of employees and/or less annual revenue than a regular-sized business or corporation. Businesses are defined as "small" in terms of being ...

es. Some critics of lifetime employment hoped that with

Junichiro Koizumi Junichiro Koizumi ( ; , ''Koizumi Jun'ichirō'' ; born 8 January 1942) is a Japanese retired politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (Japan), president of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) ...

's administration, lifetime employment would become less common. They hoped that neoliberal economics policies would result in

privatization Privatization (rendered 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 w ...

, firing of old and expensive workers, and the rise of part-time jobs. Due to the

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of market decline in economies around the world that occurred from late 2007 to mid-2009.

and the

2008 financial crisis The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...

, 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 an organization ...

s. Thus, there was less job security as ''shūshin koyō'' was challenged. However, as noted by researcher Koji Takahashi in 2019: "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
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New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

br>In Japan, Secure Jobs Have a Cost
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br>Japan Strives to Balance Growth and Job StabilityIs the Japanese employment system degenerating?
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shushin Koyo Employment in Japan Japanese words and phrases Culture of Japan