In spite of moves to employ older workers and to rationalize human resources, Japan’s manpower shortage continues to worsen and is plunging the country’s labor market into a dilemma at a time when the active labor force is shrinking. The sectors worst affected are catering and retailing, which hire mostly interim and part-time workers. However, even companies like McDonald’s Japan, Amazon and the 7-Eleven local supermarket chain are starting to develop strategies to combat the issue via raising the number of permanent employees being hired and automating simple tasks.
Historic rise in the number of permanent employment contracts. In February 2017 the job offer to applicant ratio rose to its highest level in twenty-five years at 1.43. At 2.8% Japan’s unemployment rate is currently running at a twenty-two year low and the country’s active labor force fell from a high of 87.2 million in 1995 to 77.2 million a decade later. Labor force forecasts for 2025 are around 70.8 million and it expected that there will then be a 5.83 million-labor market shortage.
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