Attitudes of new employees have changed dramatically in the past decade

The attitudes of new employees have been changing dramatically in recent years. As discussed in last year's July and September issues of JIL Labor Flash (Volumes 1 and 3, respectively), recent surveys of the attitudes of new corporate employees conducted by the Sanno College (the Sanno Institute of Management) revealed that new recruits did not mind having a non-Japanese individual as their superior, but did object to having a female as their superior. The surveys also showed that an unexpectedly large number of young people support the seniority-type wage system.

The Sanno College conducted a similar survey this year, targeting 600 new employees of 210 companies. Responses were sent in from 402 people. The survey positioned FY1992 as the last year of the Japanese economic bubble period, and compared the findings of the survey conducted that year with those of this year. It concluded that the new employees' job-hunting activities and their interest in corporate promotions have significantly changed over the last decade.

Of this year's new corporate employees, 24% found their job-hunting activities to have been "fairly tough," whereas only 11%-about half of this year's number-of new corporate employees in 1992 did. In contrast, although about 31% of the respondents ten years ago found landing a job to be "fairly easy," only about 9% did this year.

When asked about the post they hoped to reach, 35% of the respondents ten years ago replied that they had no interest in the matter. This year, however, more than half of the respondents-53%-gave similar answers, clearly showing that new employees are less eager than before to climb the corporate ladder.

The recent phenomenon of young people not joining the workforce immediately after graduating from school, and the word "freeter" (coined from "free" and "arbeiter," or part-time worker) were nonexistent ten years ago. Moreover, 66% of the respondents to this year's survey said that, although they were able to imagine what an economic bubble was like, they found it difficult to perceive that such a thing could actually happen and affect their lives. The Japanese saying, "Ten years is indeed an epoch; a past" appears to be apposite here.