In lockstep with its declining industrial position, gone are the days when traditional Japanese management practices symbolized by
life-time employment were touted as the best.
periphery); generational (wartime, postwar, prosperity, and global); corporative (the rise of small business as the majority culture and the decline of large business with guaranteed
life-time employment); labor (with a sharp increase in the casualization of labor and a less extended but still noticeable emergence of a performance-based model vs.
But the extent of such victories varied a great deal with European workers winning the biggest gains in terms of state guarantees, while Japanese workers counted mainly on
life-time employment with a particular employer, and American workers hoped to eke out a decent retirement from modest social security payments and private pension plans, the latter covering at best a third of the work force.
Daly identifies a West German approach that relies on social insurance, rewards
life-time employment, and ties benefits to labor market status.
The changes mean that not only must individuals weigh risk as they invest for retirement but they must also plan careers likely to include job-hopping instead of
life-time employment at one firm.
Living standards rocketed, and companies provided
life-time employment for newly wealthy Koreans.
In addition, they say, the industry reconfiguration is also expected to leave more people out of work, causing more serious job insecurity in a nation which boasted of
life-time employment until only a few years ago.
Three distinct features of employment practices in the internal labor-market sector are already well-known:
life-time employment, seniority wages, and enterprise-based and -confined labor unions.
Although
life-time employment is becoming a fading phenomenon in Japan, it is nevertheless still the norm and approved by society.
"At present, the deregulation of various sectors in Japan is resulting in radical social and structural changes, including a decline in the
life-time employment ethos, making foreign capital performance in Japan much easier," Mr Nakano said.
Life-time employment, seniority-based promotions, cosy ties between member firms.
