Downwardly mobile: a new job reality Straits Times / 29 July
...a story recently on the diverging fortunes within the Doi family in Japan. Mr Kojiro Doi, aged 24 and with a master's degree in social psychology, had just accepted a job at one of the top management consulting firms. His starting salary: six million yen (S$88,000) a year.
His 58-year-old father, Mr Kuniyoshi Doi, on the other hand, took early retirement two years ago from consumer electronics giant Matsushita. He is now employed at a Matsushita subsidiary. His pay? three million yen a year, or half of what his son is bringing home.
Ultimately, many workers will have to accept second 'downwardly mobile' careers, with lower salaries, and perhaps, worse working conditions. And it does not just stop there. As more companies restructure their wage systems, there will be a gradual impact on the economy as a whole.
The consequences for the economy may have a deeper undertow that has less to do with simply misaligned wage structures than what an ageing population, faced with these wrenching wage changes, means for household expenditure.
While a company can restructure its wage system to lift the bottom line, a country finds that its workers are also its consumers, and consequently there is less demand for the goods produced.
