Employment trends in the hospitality business.

[Mulboyne]

Interesting data in this article from Bloomberg, which appears in the Sankei Biz, looking at the effect of foreign flight on the restaurant business.

According to a Statistics Bureau report in March, overall employment in the restaurant business fell for the first time in eleven months. The hospitality business as a whole saw employment fall 1.9% from the previous year to 3,660,000 which was the third-largest decline of any industry, behind agriculture (-4%) and information services (-3.2%).

Hospitality is divided into hotels (which lost 30,000 employees compared with a year earlier), restaurants (down 90,000) and food delivery/take-away (roughly flat). In restaurants alone, the number of people drawing a salary but not able to work rose 33%.

Some data comparisons are difficult because the survey could not be conducted in Tohoku but it seems likely that the drop in restaurant employment is the largest since January 2010.

A Nomura Research consultant says that the restaurant industry has a relatively high dependence on foreign labour - around 2.2% of all employees are non-Japanese - but may look more to local employment in the future. 91.1% of all employees in the industry are part-timers or temps.

A Ministry of Labour report last October surveyed 108,760 workplaces and found foreign employees numbered 649,982, an increase of 14%. Manufacturers had the highest proportion followed by service companies and then hospitality businesses.

One analyst believes it is currently a buyer's market for employers and argues that labour shortages can be quickly covered.

[Mulboyne]

There's another article on the same issue here (Japanese).

Yoshinoya was in the news when it announced a quarter of the chain's 800 foreign staff working in the Tokyo metropolitan area quit after the quake but the firm actually got off fairly lightly by comparison. Half of Shirokiya's 700 foreign part-timers left and Chinese restaurant chain Hidakaya says it had 1,400 foreign part-timers, the majority Chinese, on its books before the quake and around half also left, mostly because their families back home urged them to do so.

Although some restaurants were forced to cut their opening hours, or even close, most are now back to full capacity. Shirokiya says half of those who left initially have now back at work. Although all firms are looking at labour saving ideas such as touch-screen ordering, most believe that the availability of foreign part-timers is essential if chains want to continue to open new outlets. The Nomura Research guy is quoted again suggesting that firms might have to increase the number of Japanese staff.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Uh-oh. They might have to start paying a livable wage.

[Coligny]

Uh-oh. They might have to start paying a livable wage.

done in one... thread's over...

[Mulboyne]

Uh-oh. They might have to start paying a liveable wage.

I doubt if they will. Keeping labour costs low is essential in the chain restaurant business until Japanese customers start wanting to pay more.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Uh-oh. They might have to start paying a livable wage.

They will if they have to employ humans instead of foreigners....