Hi from Nikkei Asia (again.) I’m Emma, I work in audience engagement. I’ve seen the weak yen discussed a lot here, so I thought some folks might appreciate this article. If it’s not relevant or if we shouldn’t be sharing here, please let me know!
Here’s an excerpt from the article:
*With the yen hovering around 157 against the dollar, the Japanese currency’s rapid depreciation has created problems for the country beyond costly imports, including by depressing wages in dollar terms and driving away foreign talent.*
*At a presentation last month in Shanghai, Masato Sampei, the president of recruitment support company Asia to Japan, faced a pointed question from a student: Can you live on an annual income of 3 million yen ($19,100) in Tokyo?*
*As Sampei explained the cost of living in Tokyo and a likely first-year salary at a Japanese company, students’ faces became crestfallen.*
*This is a sea change from just about 10 years ago, when talk of potential salaries at Japanese companies drew cheers.*
*”The recent depreciation of the yen was a final blow,” Sampei said. “We cannot recruit talented students from China’s coastal areas, Taiwan and South Korea.”*
*Japan’s wages have traditionally been low compared with other developed countries. Japan’s average wage in U.S. dollars ranks 25th out of 38 countries, according to the latest data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. It fell behind countries like Slovenia and Lithuania when wages slumped after the bubble economy burst.*
*With the recent depreciation of the yen, wages are looking even worse for overseas students. Securing highly skilled workers and the technical intern trainees that support short-staffed companies is becoming increasingly difficult.*
*As Japan’s appeal as a place of employment opportunity wanes, young Japanese people naturally turn overseas. Takeshi Fukumoto, from Nara prefecture, obtained a working holiday visa in November and moved to Toronto, where he works at a restaurant kitchen.*
*He makes 22 Canadian dollars ($16) an hour and averages 40 hours a week.*
*”Despite my short hours, I earn a lot,” he said. “Including tips, my monthly income is over 400,000 yen.”*
This is all too true and people living in Japan are feeling it too, and weighing their options. Foreign sourced products and international travel is becoming increasingly expensive. It will be hard to attract and keep international talent, and harder for Japanese talent to choose to build their careers in Japan versus leaving for overseas. Currently the best thing that English speaking Japanese can do for their career is leave.
22 dollars in toronto is fine unless you expect to live in the best areas without a roomie
I noped out when it stayed consistently over 110 JPY/USD for over 2 years. Can’t imagine if I had stayed.
My current salary was worth $16k more only 4 years ago. Obviously the consequences of this don’t hit as hard as long as you’re in Japan, but it’s still pretty wild. Anyone looking to sell their house and relocate back to their home country would get shafted right now.
It’s all relative. Any story of low Japanese salaries and the weak Yen should go hand in hand with the much lower cost of housing, lower CoL in general, and better quality of life compared to some of the counties with higher salaries.
What’s Fukumoto-san paying for rent in Toronto? I’m guessing it’s many, many times the cost of an equivalent place to live in Nara. What’s he paying for a beer?
EDIT: Here we go…some rough crowd sourced numbers. I used Tokyo instead of Nara since Tokyo has a lot more data.
Cost of Living in Tokyo is 21.3% lower than in Toronto (without rent) Cost of Living Including Rent in Tokyo is 29.0% lower than in Toronto Rent Prices in Tokyo are 41.2% lower than in Toronto
Rent Prices in Toronto are 418.2% higher than in Nara Restaurant Prices in Toronto are 153.0% higher than in Nara Groceries Prices in Toronto are 45.2% higher than in Nara
definitely more Japanese people are looking for jobs outside…
Unfortunately when you have the BoJ who has a stark contrast in inflation rate objectives than the rest of the world, you obtain economic butt hurt. I’m seeing my savings go down gradually and I’m itching to get out of my home country for a new life. Hopefully it is possible.
Driving away ‘all’ talent.
Looking to the lack of well educated workers and specialists here in Germany all I can say is…you are very welcome!
No shit
With all due respect to Japan, but the pay is abysmal for anyone.
Yeah but for some reason on 20k i can comfortable live alone in my own apartment downtown, eating out and drinking as much as i want. I was making 45k in Las Vegas and had rent a room with 3 others and budget like crazy to have a social life.
“But all the other benefits of living in Japan”
Had the same argument before. Wages in Japan are simply too low to be attractive for foreign/multinational talent when you have places like Singapore nearby. Yes there are fantastic benefits to living in Japan, but even when the yen was relatively stronger it was sometimes hard to justify taking a lower wage. Think software developer, IT stuff.
Finance seemed passable when the yen was stronger if you’re talking 14-16M yearly salary, but software developers making 7-8M didn’t make sense. Now even worse that the yen is stupid weak.
Japan is like my home country in a sense (Portugal). Yeah, economy is shit but look at all the great things you have (food, weather, people), they say. But I can definitely imagine the pain that people living in Japan are feeling right now.
Where did all their money go when they were #2 in GDP?
Or #3?
It’s not going to the workers…
Is it going to the companies?
Depressing
Ohhhhh nooooo
I guess Japanese companies need to raise wages
How bad
They could attract western talent if their work culture wasn’t so dystopian
Pretty soon we’ll have college graduates going overseas to work at low wage jobs, living cheap and sending money back to their parents.
It doesn’t just affect the bottom bracket, you see it on high wage earners brackets as well. A lot of “should I go back, what am I doing here, how much am I losing out”.
Additional data point missing, income tax here is a lot higher than most, not many but most, other countries. I’m paying 13-15% more tax here, on top of the 1/3 salary.
I’m curious what the US inflation does long term as that is the biggest driver on the lopsided FX, along with Japan’s lowest in the world interest rate. If it remains persistently high long term, BOJ is going to have to make some painful decisions.
So sad so many Asians feel like they have to leave for white countries to make more.
20 comments
Hi from Nikkei Asia (again.) I’m Emma, I work in audience engagement. I’ve seen the weak yen discussed a lot here, so I thought some folks might appreciate this article. If it’s not relevant or if we shouldn’t be sharing here, please let me know!
Here’s an excerpt from the article:
*With the yen hovering around 157 against the dollar, the Japanese currency’s rapid depreciation has created problems for the country beyond costly imports, including by depressing wages in dollar terms and driving away foreign talent.*
*At a presentation last month in Shanghai, Masato Sampei, the president of recruitment support company Asia to Japan, faced a pointed question from a student: Can you live on an annual income of 3 million yen ($19,100) in Tokyo?*
*As Sampei explained the cost of living in Tokyo and a likely first-year salary at a Japanese company, students’ faces became crestfallen.*
*This is a sea change from just about 10 years ago, when talk of potential salaries at Japanese companies drew cheers.*
*”The recent depreciation of the yen was a final blow,” Sampei said. “We cannot recruit talented students from China’s coastal areas, Taiwan and South Korea.”*
*Japan’s wages have traditionally been low compared with other developed countries. Japan’s average wage in U.S. dollars ranks 25th out of 38 countries, according to the latest data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. It fell behind countries like Slovenia and Lithuania when wages slumped after the bubble economy burst.*
*With the recent depreciation of the yen, wages are looking even worse for overseas students. Securing highly skilled workers and the technical intern trainees that support short-staffed companies is becoming increasingly difficult.*
*As Japan’s appeal as a place of employment opportunity wanes, young Japanese people naturally turn overseas. Takeshi Fukumoto, from Nara prefecture, obtained a working holiday visa in November and moved to Toronto, where he works at a restaurant kitchen.*
*He makes 22 Canadian dollars ($16) an hour and averages 40 hours a week.*
*”Despite my short hours, I earn a lot,” he said. “Including tips, my monthly income is over 400,000 yen.”*
This is all too true and people living in Japan are feeling it too, and weighing their options. Foreign sourced products and international travel is becoming increasingly expensive.
It will be hard to attract and keep international talent, and harder for Japanese talent to choose to build their careers in Japan versus leaving for overseas. Currently the best thing that English speaking Japanese can do for their career is leave.
22 dollars in toronto is fine unless you expect to live in the best areas without a roomie
I noped out when it stayed consistently over 110 JPY/USD for over 2 years. Can’t imagine if I had stayed.
My current salary was worth $16k more only 4 years ago. Obviously the consequences of this don’t hit as hard as long as you’re in Japan, but it’s still pretty wild. Anyone looking to sell their house and relocate back to their home country would get shafted right now.
It’s all relative. Any story of low Japanese salaries and the weak Yen should go hand in hand with the much lower cost of housing, lower CoL in general, and better quality of life compared to some of the counties with higher salaries.
What’s Fukumoto-san paying for rent in Toronto? I’m guessing it’s many, many times the cost of an equivalent place to live in Nara. What’s he paying for a beer?
EDIT: Here we go…some rough crowd sourced numbers. I used Tokyo instead of Nara since Tokyo has a lot more data.
Cost of Living in Tokyo is 21.3% lower than in Toronto (without rent)
Cost of Living Including Rent in Tokyo is 29.0% lower than in Toronto
Rent Prices in Tokyo are 41.2% lower than in Toronto
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Canada&country2=Japan&city1=Toronto&city2=Tokyo&tracking=getDispatchComparison
But why not throw the Nara stats in any way
Rent Prices in Toronto are 418.2% higher than in Nara
Restaurant Prices in Toronto are 153.0% higher than in Nara
Groceries Prices in Toronto are 45.2% higher than in Nara
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Japan&country2=Canada&city1=Nara&city2=Toronto&tracking=getDispatchComparison
definitely more Japanese people are looking for jobs outside…
Unfortunately when you have the BoJ who has a stark contrast in inflation rate objectives than the rest of the world, you obtain economic butt hurt.
I’m seeing my savings go down gradually and I’m itching to get out of my home country for a new life. Hopefully it is possible.
Driving away ‘all’ talent.
Looking to the lack of well educated workers and specialists here in Germany all I can say is…you are very welcome!
No shit
With all due respect to Japan, but the pay is abysmal for anyone.
Yeah but for some reason on 20k i can comfortable live alone in my own apartment downtown, eating out and drinking as much as i want. I was making 45k in Las Vegas and had rent a room with 3 others and budget like crazy to have a social life.
“But all the other benefits of living in Japan”
Had the same argument before. Wages in Japan are simply too low to be attractive for foreign/multinational talent when you have places like Singapore nearby. Yes there are fantastic benefits to living in Japan, but even when the yen was relatively stronger it was sometimes hard to justify taking a lower wage. Think software developer, IT stuff.
Finance seemed passable when the yen was stronger if you’re talking 14-16M yearly salary, but software developers making 7-8M didn’t make sense. Now even worse that the yen is stupid weak.
Japan is like my home country in a sense (Portugal). Yeah, economy is shit but look at all the great things you have (food, weather, people), they say. But I can definitely imagine the pain that people living in Japan are feeling right now.
Where did all their money go when they were #2 in GDP?
Or #3?
It’s not going to the workers…
Is it going to the companies?
Depressing
Ohhhhh nooooo
I guess Japanese companies need to raise wages
How bad
They could attract western talent if their work culture wasn’t so dystopian
Pretty soon we’ll have college graduates going overseas to work at low wage jobs, living cheap and sending money back to their parents.
It doesn’t just affect the bottom bracket, you see it on high wage earners brackets as well. A lot of “should I go back, what am I doing here, how much am I losing out”.
Additional data point missing, income tax here is a lot higher than most, not many but most, other countries. I’m paying 13-15% more tax here, on top of the 1/3 salary.
I’m curious what the US inflation does long term as that is the biggest driver on the lopsided FX, along with Japan’s lowest in the world interest rate. If it remains persistently high long term, BOJ is going to have to make some painful decisions.
So sad so many Asians feel like they have to leave for white countries to make more.